One of Canada's Unsavoury Truths

While I shall always be proud to be a Canadian, I have never subscribed to the mantra, "My country, right or wrong," which to me means uncritical acceptance of every action taken by one's country simply because it is one's country. In my mind, such a philosophy is an abdication of one of the responsibilities of citizenship, not an expression of it.

With that in mind, I am reproducing below an article from today's Globe and Mail that addresses an issue of fundamental wrongdoing, the export of asbestos to developing countries. As most people know, asbestos is a leading cause of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining that is invariably fatal. In fact, it is what killed the actor Steve McQueen many years ago. Despite the well-established link between asbestos inhalation and this cancer, the Quebec provincial government, aided and abetted by the federal government, continues to mine and export it, the result being increased rates of mesothelioma and other lung cancers in places such as Mexico, where it is used as an additive to strengthen cement. No amount of jobs (700 in Quebec) can justify this export of death.

Controversy brews over asbestos deaths in Mexico

Martin Mittelstaedt
From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Feb. 12, 2010 10:55PM EST Last updated on Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010 3:29AM EST

The death toll from mesothelioma, a rare cancer almost always caused by asbestos exposure, is rising rapidly in Mexico, a major market for Canada's exports of the mineral, and could be as high as 500 a year.

The figure – an estimate by doctors at the Mexican Institute of Social Security, a government health agency – is likely to spur further controversy over Canada's aggressive promotion of the cancer-causing material in the developing world. Concerns over asbestos were a focus of attention during Quebec Premier Jean Charest's recent trade mission to India. He defended the mineral, which is mined in his province and supports about 700 jobs.

Guadalupe Aguilar, an occupational health expert who led the team that conducted the research, said the full impact of asbestos may be even greater because medical surveys have found that for every mesothelioma death, there are likely an additional 2.3 fatal cases of lung cancer due to inhalation of the mineral. The total number of asbestos-caused deaths in Mexico is probably around 1,500 annually, Dr. Aguilar said.

The researchers published the mortality estimate in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Industrial Medicine. They said the “major type of asbestos” used in Mexico “is chrysotile imported from Canada.” And they called the asbestos trade a “deplorable example of the manner in which dangerous industries are being deliberately exported to Mexico and less industrialized countries.”
Developing countries use asbestos as an additive to strengthen cement.

Critics of the asbestos industry contend the Mexican findings call into question the federal and Quebec governments' view that the mineral can be used with little risk, and suggest an even higher health toll because Canada exports it to many other countries.

“The evidence is clear that chrysotile asbestos around the world is causing devastating health impacts,” said Kathleen Ruff, senior human-rights adviser at the Rideau Institute, a left-leaning Ottawa think tank.

The federal government said the new research doesn't alter its view that asbestos can be used safely, and that it is tightly regulated in Mexico.

“The risks associated with its use can be managed under controlled conditions. Banning chrysotile is neither necessary nor appropriate,” Natural Resources Canada said in a statement. It contended the Mexican deaths were due to past uses of asbestos that are now prohibited.

But the study disputed the federal view, and the doctors said they found many Mexican workers aren't aware of the dangers posed by asbestos. It concluded a ban is the only way “to prevent the epidemic clearly shown using national mortality data.”
The Canadian position is also at odds with the World Health Organization, which says no known safe threshold exists for asbestos exposure, and the most effective way to eliminate the health hazard is to stop using it.

Asbestos is considered so dangerous that some provinces, such as Ontario, limit exposure to a maximum of one dust-like fibre in 10 cubic centimetres of air, something that requires highly sophisticated monitoring and ventilation equipment.

Because of health and litigation risks, Canada doesn't use much asbestos. About 95 per cent of Quebec's output is exported, virtually all of it to the developing world. Canada is a dominant seller in Mexico, accounting for about one-third of the market in 2008.

The United States and Haiti

While the world has watched with horror at the terrible devastation wrought by Haiti's recent earthquake, many see the leadership role taken by the United States in disaster relief as heroic. Unfortunately, appearances can be deceiving, and an article in today's Toronto Star suggests that the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for the violence and poverty that are the perennial companions of the Haitians. Click here to read a very thought-provoking article about the pernicious influence of a country that professes to be so interested in bringing democracy to other parts of the world.

Fury and Criticism of Harper Grows

In addition to the growing numbers who have joined the Facebook group protesting the Prime Minister's prorogation of Parliament, editorials, both domestic and international, are condemning his cowardice. The British magazine, The Economist, has an editorial that seems to address several of the truths of what Harper has done.

Click here to view it.

Parliamentary Democracy to be Suspended for More Than Two Months

As reported online in today’s Globe and Mail, our sinister Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, plans to suspend Parliament until March. Although he will have to ask permission of the Governor-General, Michele Jean, this is considered a formality, and, indeed, a forgone conclusion given her collusion with the government just over a year ago when she agreed to a Parliamentary ‘time- out’ to prevent the government from falling and being replaced by a coalition consisting of the Liberals, the Bloc, and the NDP.

What is the Harper government fleeing from this time? The answer lies in the parliamentary committee examining alleged government knowledge that our military was contravening the Geneva Convention in handing over Afghan detainees to Afghan authorities who commonly practice torture on its prisoners. Recent testimony by Richard Colvin clearly suggests a cover-up about this knowledge, and the fact that the government has refused the committee’s request for unredacted documents is the most obvious catalyst for this contemptible move by a craven Prime Minister. Harper is doubtlessly counting on the public’s short attention span to be his biggest ally in this shameful attack on freedom of information in particular and democracy in general.

Animal Shows, Human Nature, and Chris Hedges

I recently had the pleasure of watching a Nova special on PBS entitled The Last Great Ape, which profiled the bonobo ape, an endangered species found exclusively in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Aside from its intelligence, the most remarkable aspect of the bonobo is that its matriarchal culture operates on co-operation, not the confrontation and violence that defines its chimpanzee cousin’s way of life. The program tells us that the two species diverged about two million years ago. Given the fact that we all evolved from a common primate ancestor, the program reminds us that human society has elements of both species in its makeup, both the capacity for terrible aggression and life-affirming co-operative behaviour.

So why is this so important to appreciate? I just read a thought-provoking book by Chris Hedges called I Don’t Believe in Atheists, the thesis of which is that both religious fundamentalists and the new atheists (people such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens,) are equally dangerous in that both cling to ideologies that ignore some basic truths about human nature. While the fundamentalists prescribe a very narrow set of beliefs as the way to salvation, condemning all others to the fiery pit of hell, scientist- atheists such as Hitchens and Harris argue for the perfectibility of humanity through scientific progress, going so far as to advocate the extermination of Muslims because of the extremist element responsible for terrorism. What makes both polarities so dangerous is the intolerance of all opposing beliefs, the arrogant belief in the absolute truth of their own positions, and the failure to recognize that humans, by their divided animal nature, can never achieve perfection, either through the acceptance of religious or scientific doctrine.

I found both the program and the book refreshing. As implied in the Nova documentary, and made explicit in Hedges’ book, until we confront and completely acknowledge the immutability of the animal side of our natures, real progress (but never perfectibility) in the human condition is not achievable, and we will be forever susceptible to those demagogues, both religious and secular, who try to convince us that salvation is to be found in a set of beliefs, a set of actions, or a ‘final solution.’

Ah, The Sweet Smell of Integrity

It’s hard, when looking at local, provincial, national and international political behaviour, not to be deeply cynical about human nature. The failure of the Copenhagen Summit is but the latest example of our short-sightedness as a species. But occasionally, something happens that confirms the human capacity for principled and honourable choices. Two such examples are to be found in yesterday’s Globe and Mail.

Entitled “The day the music died,” the article tells of two defections from the opening and closing 2010 Winter Olympics to be held in British Columbia. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Bramwell Tovey, has decided not to be part of the opening ceremonies because it was asked this week to prerecord its music that would then be mimed by other performers during the spectacle. Seeing this as a gross public deception, Mr. Tovey compared it to Ben Johnson’s victory in 1988, winning gold but later stripped of the medal when he tested positive for steroids that enhanced his performance.

The second defection is by Terry Dove, a performer who auditioned to march and dance in the closing ceremonies. An enthusiast of the Olympics, his ardour has been diminished by the recent treatment of those who oppose them for a variety of reasons. One such person, Marla Renn, faced a long delay and intrusive questioning at the Canada-U.S border, simply because she is known as an anti-Olympics activist.

Both Tovey and Dovey have made very difficult choices here, ones that I think we would find hard to make were we in similar situations. God bless them for their integrity, something the modern Olympics lost many years ago. They are real heroes in my eyes.

Typical Institutional Behaviour

As I travel further into retirement and have more time to devote to newspaper reading, it occurs to me that I have now lived long enough to see through the majority of attempts by the media and by government to manipulate the public. The latest case in point which I would like to address should be obvious even to the most casual thinker; I refer to the ongoing testimony of Richard Colvin, who was Canada’s second-highest diplomat stationed in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, to a House of Commons committee.

According to Colvin, a whistle-blower in the noblest sense of the word, he tried to alert the Canadian government repeatedly to the fact that Afghans turned over by the Canadian military to Afghan authorities were regularly tortured, despite the fact that most of them had no ties to terrorism, being simple villagers, taxi-drivers, etc., innocent victims who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Indeed, it reached such a point that he was told by his ‘bosses’ in Ottawa to no longer put in writing his allegations.

The Conservative Government’s stance for several years has been that it had no knowledge of such activity, despite the urgent reports sent by Colvin to senior civil servants in the Prime Minister’s Office, General Hillier, who was the Commander of the troops at the time, and various politicians. In trying to handle the damage being done by Colvin’s testimony, the Conservative Government members on the committee are engaging in a classic ‘shoot the messenger’ strategy, trying to impugn him by saying that since he never personally witnessed torture, such evidence he is presenting would not stand up in a court of law. As well, Conservative (former NDPer) Cheryl Gallant is lamenting that his talk of abuse of prisoners is undermining public support for the Afghan mission, a mission that I think very few Canadians now support given the terrible toll of young lives lost to support a corrupt regime, in essence sacrificing their lives for absolutely nothing.

Nonetheless, her statement, and the attitude of the Conservatives on the committee serve only to try to divert thinking Canadians from forcing them to address the real issues here. If it is true that, as claimed, former Defense Minister Gordon O’Connor, and current Defense Minister Peter Mackay knew nothing about these allegations of abuse, what does that say about their competence as ministers? Indeed, can’t the case be cogently argued that Mackay has a moral duty to resign since, if he is telling the truth and did not receive any reports, he is incompetent to head the Ministry of Defense?

Of course, such an act of integrity will never happen, politicians knowing that if they attack the messenger vigorously enough, and let enough time elapse, the public will forget.

With principles so sorely lacking in public life, is it any wonder that only a minority of Canadians vote in federal, provincial, and municipal elections?