Mr. Speaker, we are here today debating a ban on asbestos and to share the impacts that the mining and use of asbestos have on people around the globe. Being one of the largest exporters of this death trap, we have to take responsibility. I have heard my colleagues across the way say the NDP is against mining or ask what New Democrats have against the resource industry. I find that argument very disingenuous. We are here to talk about asbestos and the impact of it on human lives, so let us focus on that.
The government's argument would have us say that because I am for pharmaceutical drugs, I therefore support cocaine and heroine. That is a fallacious argument. It is using that kind of argument to stop itself from actually dealing with the debate and the issue at hand today.
I had the privilege of arriving in Canada in 1975. I was a young teacher in England. That was my first job. My second job was to teach in Quebec and I was very excited. My husband and I arrived in Thetford Mines. We were both teachers and were hired to teach there. I worked at Cégep, the high school and with seniors. I fell in love with Canada at that time. I must admit that the climate was a bit much. When the cold winter arrived, I shivered a lot, but I fell in love with the snow and started to realize that once could use it in a very effective way. I discovered snowshoeing, skiing and all of those things. However, I discovered something else as the snow started to melt.
I had heard a lot about asbestos. Remember that I am speaking about 1975. It was only as the snowbanks started to melt that I saw the layers of asbestos fibres in the snow. It caused me a great deal of concern and at that stage I remember thinking that I had to do some research because if fine fibres of asbestos were caught in snowbanks, what impact must it be having on my lungs. My husband and I decided at that stage to move from Thetford Mines, about a 45-minute drive away. We thought we were actually escaping the asbestos fibres. Lo and behold, in a little village called Kinnear's Mills, the snow came and I thought it was absolutely pristine until the spring came and the thaw began. Once again, I saw that even 45 minutes away, those fine fibres were there.
At that stage, my husband and I made the choice that we would not stay in that area because by that time we had a baby and we were concerned about the impact of asbestos. Since those days we have a come a long way in Canada. We now recognize that Canada is regulated under the Hazardous Products Act. When asbestos is found in schools, it is removed immediately, and Parliament buildings are shut down so asbestos can be removed because we know that asbestos does harm.
In the same way, our workforce is also regulated, but despite all of the regulations that exist, there are still a huge number of deaths due to asbestos. The cost to the health care system is absolutely amazing. This is in a country that has many regulations. La Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec conducted a study showing that the cost of disability payments to 691 workers suffering from an asbestos-related occupational illness exceeded $66 million by the year 2000.
Here we are talking about dollars, but today through questions and other speakers, we have actually heard the real impact on families as they watched a loved one die due to asbestos, something that we can prevent and that we are trying to prevent here.
I have a question to my colleagues across the floor. Why, then, is the government not willing to sign on to the Rotterdam Convention and say that this is one of those hazardous materials? India, one of our major importers, after a few years of making the same mistake, has now seen daylight and is willing to sign on to this convention. The country that is standing in the way is Canada. The arguments we are hearing are economic arguments about mining and the money it brings in. We are not talking about the death we are exporting.
It is very easy for us to say that the countries we export to can put all kinds of regulations in place but look at the major countries we export to. We export to Indonesia, India and the Philippines. It is no secret that in India the literacy rate is still very low in many parts of the country. It is also no secret that there is very little regulation and oversight into these kinds of hazardous materials. Yet, knowing that this material causes grave harm, we are prepared to sell it.
This question comes to my mind. We all set our hair on fire whenever we hear Colombia or other countries are selling drugs that end up on our streets and do our children harm. I am one of those. I am a mother and a teacher. I care very deeply. I do not want those drugs on my streets because they are dangerous. Then why are we, a developed nation, exporting a product that is causing deaths of a similar and greater magnitude in developing countries? I ask colleagues, from all sides of the House, that we stop and think about the harm this fibre, this asbestos, is doing to men, women and children.
We are not talking about dollars here. For jobs, the NDP motion has built into it a need for us to have diversification, a need for us to invest in other greener and more healthier economies. Let us invest in our manufacturing industries. Let us look at other possibilities. Let us do a transition plan for workers who are employed in this industry right now. That is the action that we need to take. That is what responsible government is all about.
What kind of a reputation do we want to have in the world? That there is a product that we do not want to be used here, but we are willing to sell it overseas where it can have a very high death rate due to that problem, but it is not our problem because we have our dollars in our pocket.
This cannot be about dollars in the Canadian government's pockets. I know Canadians. Canadians are compassionate and caring people. They would not want to make a very minuscule profit, or even a big profit, at the expense of imposing on other countries massive deaths of men, women and children.
We are all wearing our poppies today and this week we are going to be remembering the men and women who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of men, women and children in other countries. So today I appeal to the goodness in all of us in the same way.
Let us keep in mind that we are Canadians. If we think a product is hazardous for us, it is hazardous for others. Let us not export death.