Pat Martin

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that poignant remark needs any additional comment. It is a widely-held view. First, most Canadians thinks that asbestos is banned in Canada. It is not. Canada even sabotaged the United States. When the United States tried to ban asbestos in 1992, Canada unleashed Allan Gottlieb and Derek Burney. Every senior diplomat in the country swept down and managed to block congress' bill to ban asbestos in all its forms. Had it done so 20 years ago, I believe a domino effect would have taken place and the world would have stopped the trade and traffic of Canadian asbestos.

Instead, we are the world's number one cheerleader and sabotage other countries' efforts to curb its use at every opportunity. We go to the WTO and file grievances whenever some country wants to ban asbestos. We twist the arms of small developing nations. We give them foreign aid with one hand on the condition that they keep supporting the asbestos industry. On the other hand, it is morally and ethically reprehensible, in the words of Keith Spicer.

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, recognize the long-standing support by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for this global movement to ban asbestos. Often, she and I were the only ones at events, functions and rallies to bring the public's attention to this issue.

She raises an important point. There is zero scientific evidence to support the government side. There is one study, which has never been peer tested, by a man named David Bernstein that the Chrysotile Institute paid $1 million to have written. It is so absurd that not a medical doctor in the world has ever ratified or peer tested it. One of the points. Dr. Bernstein makes on behalf of the Conservative government is that ingesting chrysotile asbestos is actually good for people in the sense that it triggers their bodies' immune system to try to expel it. He went on to explain that it was like flexing a muscle. The body's immune system is mobilized to get rid of asbestos. It is so absurd it is almost comical.

The rest of the scientific community is united in saying that all asbestos kills, that there is nothing benign about Canadian chrysotile asbestos and that Canada should get out of the asbestos industry.

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to join in this debate, which has been a long time coming and is long overdue.

Asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has ever known. More Canadians die from asbestos than from all other industrial and occupational-related causes combined, and yet Canada continues to be one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world. On a good year we dump nearly 200,000 tonnes into underdeveloped and developing nations.

Not only is asbestos not banned in Canada, as it is in as many as 50 developed nations, but we have spent millions of dollars and continue to spend millions of dollars subsidizing and promoting the asbestos industry. No other Canadian commodity enjoys the amount of support that asbestos does. This class A carcinogen enjoys an irrational affinity of the Government of Canada, which made 160 trade junkets to 60 different countries using our embassies, trade commissioners, and our foreign missions to promote something that we Canadians ourselves would not allow our children to be exposed to.

It is the height of hypocrisy that we are spending tens of millions of dollars to remove all of the asbestos from the Parliament Buildings because no MP should ever be exposed to a single fibre, and yet we promote and subsidize the export of thousands of tonnes per year to underdeveloped nations where there are virtually no health and safety protocols.

We are exporting human misery on a monumental scale and there is no justification or excuse for it. We are exporting a made in Canada epidemic. It is like unleashing a thousand Bhopal's into India in a timed release way because we know that the legacy of disease and death stemming from this is undeniable.

Who agrees with us? The World Health Organization, the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Cancer Society have all recently said that asbestos should be banned in all its forms and that Canada should be out of the asbestos industry.

We do not even have to take active steps to shut down the asbestos industry. All we have to do is turn off the tap of corporate welfare, the millions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies to the industry. I call it corporate welfare for corporate serial killers. It is indefensible. Canadians would be horrified to know the extent of our involvement in the asbestos cartel.

I agree with Keith Spicer, a veteran Canadian journalist, who said recently that Canada's position on asbestos is morally and ethically reprehensible. He wrote this in Paris, where notably, France was one of the first countries in the European Union to ban asbestos in all of its forms. Canada went to the World Trade Organization in 1999 to try to stop France from banning its asbestos. Fortunately, for the people of France, Canada lost and that led to the entire European Union banning asbestos in all of its forms.

No amount of money is going to take the stink off the asbestos industry. Imagine a lobby organization being funded by the government to lobby the government. That is how irrational our approach to asbestos is. We not only spend money subsidizing the industry directly but we subsidize it in an indirect way as well. We sent a team of Department of Justice lawyers all over the world like globe-trotting propagandists to try to block other countries from curbing its use. It is incredible.

I went to Rome at my own expense and observed the Canadian delegation sabotage the Rotterdam convention in an effort to keep asbestos off the list of hazardous materials. The Rotterdam convention does not even ban hazardous chemicals. It just says that if they are going to be sold then they must include a warning label and a caution to the end user. In other words, informed prior consent that the end user knows that it is a carcinogen.

Canada has consistently blocked asbestos being listed on the Rotterdam convention because it would interfere with our ability to market it in the third world. When commercialization trumps science and reason, logic, morality and ethics, then we are in a serious situation.

There are those who would have us believe that there is something magically benign about the asbestos that we mine here in Canada. Ninety-five per cent of all the asbestos ever mined in the world is chrysotile, the type that we mine here. I used to work in the asbestos mines. We were lied to about the health hazards of asbestos then, just as the world continues to be lied to about the health hazards of chrysotile today. All asbestos kills. Chrysotile asbestos is a class A carcinogen, according to Health Canada, the World Health Organization, the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Cancer Society.

Time does not permit me to go through the history of Canada's irrational affinity for this carcinogen. The asbestos industry has been like the tobacco industry's evil twin, in that they both have relied for more than a century on junk science, the best science money can buy; on aggressive public relations campaigns, domestically and internationally; and on intense political lobbying.

That is how the asbestos industry has pulled the wool over the eyes of the world for a generation. Canada plays an integral role in the activities of the asbestos cartel because it relies on Canada's boy scout image. The asbestos industry tells the world that if a nice country like Canada thinks asbestos is okay, it must be okay. That boy scout image is being severely tarnished. Canada is being viewed as an international pariah for our involvement in the asbestos industry.

Let me suggest that the money we spend subsidizing the asbestos industry would be better spent on starting a national registry to track and monitor the incidence of asbestos-related disease across the country. It would be better spent to improve the diagnostics and treatment of asbestos-related disease because if we are going to be one of the largest exporters of exporters to the world, surely we should be a centre of excellence for the diagnostics and treatment of asbestos-related disease.

In actual fact, Canadians who are struck down with mesothelioma more often than not have to go to the United States to get decent diagnostics and treatment. The money that we spend subsidizing the asbestos industry now would be better used putting in place a testing and remediation program so that Canadian homeowners, whose biggest single investment is contaminated by this Canadian epidemic, would be given a chance to test for asbestos and remove it when found. That would be a good use of government tax dollars.

The Government of Canada participated in contaminating hundreds of thousands of Canadian homes through its CHIP, a home insulation program in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One of the products the government was subsidizing was called zonolite, which is loaded with tremolite asbestos. It contaminated the attics of hundreds of thousands of homes, subsidized and promoted its installation and then left homeowners with this liability, not only making their homes unsafe but devaluing them as well. That would be a good use of Canadian tax dollars in relation to this particular carcinogen.

In my final minute, I would like to make members aware of an open letter that was sent to the member for Simcoe—Grey, a medical doctor who recently received national recognition for her work in the protection of children. This letter is signed by hundreds of doctors around the country, urging the member for Simcoe—Grey, as a Conservative member of Parliament, to live up to her Hippocratic oath and not support the Conservative government's irrational and dangerous position on asbestos. In fact, the letter makes an urgent appeal to the member to stand with science and research, and not with the political and commercial considerations that have kept this deadly industry killing people for much longer than it ever should.

Let the asbestos industry die a natural death. Turn off the tap of corporate welfare and, believe me, it will go the way of all the other asbestos mines in the country and Canada will be out of this deadly industry.

[Points of Order, October 26th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to. I appreciate the opportunity to table the time, the location, and the date; in fact, the member can go onto YouTube right now and watch the entire movie. It was the April 14 all candidates' debate for the federal election campaign.

I could read the quote again if he likes, if he wants to double-check: “The Canadian Wheat Board should be dis--”

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 26th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quote of the member for Brant of April 14. He stated, “The Canadian Wheat Board...should be decided upon in terms of its existence by the farmers themselves in a plebiscite or a vote as to whether it should continue with the mandate it was originally given”.

If the member for Brant can understand this basic principle of fairness and democracy, what on earth is wrong with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food? How can he let the members who are in conflict of interest vote on the future of the Wheat Board when he will not allow the same right to the very prairie farm producers who rely on it for their economic well-being?

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, coming from a failed ostrich jockey, I do not know what the member knows about beaver fever.

One thing is clear: the government actually has no idea what will happen when it does away with the Wheat Board. It is legislating away a $6 billion-a-year successful company without a business plan, without a cost-benefit analysis, without any evidence whatsoever that prairie farmers will actually be better off. If the government has such documentation, why does it not table it in the House?

If the government will allow government MPs who are in a conflict of interest to vote, why will it not let prairie farmers vote on how they want to market their grain themselves?

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, if the Conservatives really believe that prairie grain farmers will make more money by selling their grain outside of the Canadian Wheat Board, then that means every single Conservative MP involved in the grain industry is in a conflict of interest and must recuse themselves from the vote on Bill C-18.

If it is not true, then one must ask why the Conservatives are destroying this great Canadian institution if they do not in fact believe that it will be better for Canadian farmers.

They cannot have it both ways. Which is it, a conflict of interest or a reckless and irresponsible idea that will bring uncertainty and instability to the whole agricultural community of the Prairies?

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it does beg the question of which side the Conservatives are on.

If the Canadian public only knew some of the dirty tricks associated with the Conservatives' efforts to stamp out the Wheat Board, they would be horrified. They carpet-bombed the whole prairie region with taxpayer-funded misinformation and propaganda. The government imposed a gag order that prohibited the Wheat Board directors from even defending themselves and correcting the misinformation. I do not think the Canadian public with a democratic sense and a sense of right and wrong would ever tolerate such a thing.

Let me say simply that the member for Macleod should not be voting on this bill. As well, the member for Yellowhead, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright, the member for Red Deer, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, the member for Crowfoot, and the member for Prince Albert, none of them has any right to vote on this bill.

In fact, it will be a contravention of the conflict of interest code if they stand up and vote on this bill tonight. They should not even be participating in the debate because, by their own arguments, they stand to benefit personally.

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Lethbridge makes my point for me, exactly. Why not let prairie grain farmers vote on how they want to market their grain? That is how this whole debate began, continues and will end. We are insisting, if the government wants to give prairie farmers more choice in how they market their grain, let them vote on it, which is what the legislation says. My colleague has helped us to make the very point we are trying to make.

The conflict of interest is so profound and so obvious. Any member of Parliament who has read the conflict of interest code that guides all of us in our conduct will know that they are duty bound and honour bound to step out of this debate and not vote on this particular piece of legislation.

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 24th, 2011]

Let them vote.