Paying a Catastrophic Price for Canada’s Asbestos Riches
The life expectancy for Canadian males in the province of British Colombia (BC) is around 80; the death last month of BC politician Chuck Strahl at 67 cheated him and his loved ones of years of family life.1 The fact that Strahl had served for 18 years as a Member of the Canadian Parliament and a cabinet minister made his death newsworthy, unlike that of thousands of his fellow citizens.
 Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Chuck Strahl during question time in the House of Commons, Ottawa. September 23, 2010. |
Strahl paid with his life for Canada’s love affair with asbestos, nicknamed “white gold” for its contribution to the national economy. Until the 1970s, Canada was the world’s largest asbestos producer with mines in Quebec, British Columbia and Newfoundland. Although it was soon to be overtaken by output from mines in Soviet Russia, Canada remained the global asbestos cheerleader for decades. In this role, Canadian politicians and lobbyists, aggressively targeted international agencies and went as far as blocking United Nations efforts to protect global populations from toxic asbestos exposures.
Strahl retired from politics in 2011 having been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the signature cancer associated with asbestos exposure, six years previously.2 In a text Strahl published on August 22, 2005, he described the bombshell which had derailed his life:
“This column is about my cancer .... By week's end the pathologists had determined that the lining of my lung (the pleura) had developed cancer, likely because of an exposure to asbestos when I was a young man. My logging days included a time when we used open, asbestos brakes on the yarders, and while my exposure wasn't that lengthy, it was intense. Typically, 20-25 years later, the asbestos works its ugly magic. Unfortunately, I'm right on time.
A column like this could have the word unfortunately sprinkled throughout, and it is the perfect word for the situation. Unfortunately, I was exposed to asbestos. Unfortunately, my body couldn't handle it. Unfortunately, it targets the lungs. Unfortunately, there is no cure, only treatment. Unfortunately, like all cancer, the disease has an awful, debilitating effect on your family and friends, all of whom want to help, can't believe it is happening, and just wish they could do something to make it right again.”
There can be no doubt that Strahl’s personal experience informed the political decisions he made. Although his political party strongly backed the asbestos sector, Strahl publicly questioned whether Ottawa should use its influence and resources to support this deadly industry. “I'd just as soon,” he said “the Canadian government didn't spend money to promote a product that some countries are going to question our stand on.” 3 Breaking with the party line on blocking the listing of asbestos as a hazardous substance on the UN’s Rotterdam Convention, Strahl was adamant:
“What isn't right is to ship something to some country and say ‘We won't tell you what's in this. Don't worry about it’… The important thing to me is to tell people about the risk. … It is demonstrably bad for you, this stuff.”4
When Canada finally banned asbestos in 2018, the deadly legacy remained in the lungs of its people, the natural environment and the national infrastructure. The consequences of more than a century of asbestos production were predictable. In a 2004 report entitled “The Epidemiology of Asbestos-Related Diseases in Quebec,” it was reported that:
“In comparison to the international community, the situation among Quebec men is only surpassed in several counties: in the United Kingdom, several states in Australia and several regions in the Netherlands. Incidence rates of mesothelioma of the pleura rose significantly between 1982 and 1996 in Quebec's male population with a 5% average annual rate of increase… the incidence of mesothelioma in Quebec is greater than that observed in the rest of Canada, and in Sweden, Norway, Israel, and several East European countries…Quebec men and women also show significantly higher rates of mesothelioma of the pleura than men and women in the rest of Canada and in several other countries.”5
Amidst this moribund industrial landscape, people lived and died. In a coming-of-age novel published on August 15, 2024 by Canadian poet Sébastien Dulude, the author explored the tensions of living in a company town totally reliant on wresting a deadly mineral from the ground.
 Dulude’s novel “Amiante” (Asbestos), about growing up in an asbestos mining town during the 1980s, has been nominated for two major French literary prizes. |
Speaking about his life in Thetford Mines from ages 6-16, Dulude told Montreal journalist Anne-Frédérique Hébert-Dolbec:
“It's dizzying this absence of horizon, of possibility of exits. There is an ambient unease caused by the power relationship that humans have established with nature in this city, a domination that betrays them to the point of making them sick.” 6
There has been a considerable buzz over Dulude’s novel which, according to one of its reviewers is “certainly not a celebration of Thetford Mines, but which manages to place side by side all the pain and euphoria of a lonely youth, at the heart of an environment largely obliterated by Quebec literature.” What is mentioned in more than one article about the new book are the lazy summer days the protagonist spent as a child exploring the “dompes” [dumps] on foot and by bicycle, even though it was forbidden to do so. Twenty per cent of the volume of these slag heaps – and there are 800 million tonnes of asbestos tailings in Quebec – is asbestos fibers. Dulude may have escaped Thetford Mines, but he took some unwanted souvenirs away with him.
Even before the mines closed, business interests were exploring how to commercially exploit the waste. Some backed plans to extract magnesium, silica and manganese from the tailings, others wanted to produce magnesium ingots for car manufacturing and some suggested making fertilizer or sand for cutting steel and sandblasting. According to them all, the residues represented a “significant economic opportunity,” worth billions of dollars to the local economy. Be that as it may, all their plans ended in failure.7
After twelve years of unfulfilled promises by developers, people in the former asbestos mining town of Asbestos, Quebec (now renamed Val-des-Sources) are progressing efforts to acquire Tergeo Miniraux Critiques, whose creditors now own the 4.8 million square meters plot of land from where Tergeo had planned to extract magnesium, nickel and silica.
According to Stéphane Alain, Deputy Director General – Territorial Development, of Val-des-Sources, who is leading the project for the municipality:
“Instead of selling this huge piece of land and its 110 million tonnes of asbestos mining waste to a single company, we are proposing a new model where 7 to 10 companies can share the same industrial park and access to the residual resources they covet.
Of the lot, perhaps some will end up closing… But in the end, there will always be others to continue to feed our economy. In our eyes, it is through such diversification that we will succeed in achieving our objective of sustainable development.” 8
Whatever the final disposition of this land, many people fear that the processing of the toxic waste sitting upon it will create yet more deadly exposures for workers and residents. What direction the people of Val-des-Sources take now, will determine the town’s fate for decades to come.
September 3, 2024
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1 Nay, I.P. Former Chilliwack, B.C., MP Chuck Strahl dead at 67. August 14, 2024.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/chuck-strahl-obit-1.7295005
2 Kazan-Allen, L. Tragic Consequences of Asbestos Exposure. September 1, 2005.
http://www.ibasecretariat.org/lka_trag_conseq_asb_exp.php
Strahl believed that his exposure to asbestos had taken place when he worked in the logging industry as a young man.
3 Strahl urges Tories to move on asbestos. June 20, 2011.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/strahl-urges-tories-to-move-on-asbestos-1.1075204
4 ibid.
5 Kazan-Allen, L. Asbestos Kills Canadians Too! August 14, 2004.
http://ibasecretariat.org/lka_asb_kill_can_too.php
6 Hebert-Dolbec, AF. Souvenirs de l’été 1986 [Memories of the Summer of 1986]. August 17, 2024.
https://www.ledevoir.com/lire/818268/souvenirs-ete-1986
Tardif, D. Les garçons de l’été, le livre de la rentrée [The Boys of Summer, the Back-to-School Book]. August 10, 2024.
https://www.lapresse.ca/arts/litterature/2024-08-10/amiante-de-sebastien-dulude/les-garcons-de-l-ete-le-livre-de-la-rentree.php
7 Lalonde, M. Pandora’s box opens on Quebec's deadly asbestos legacy. February 15, 2020.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/pandoras-box-opens-on-quebecs-deadly-asbestos-legacy
8 Jolicoeur, M. L’ex-capitale mondiale de l'amiante veut reprendre le contrôle de son destin [Former world capital of asbestos wants to regain control of its destiny]. August 10, 2024.
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/08/10/lex-asbestos-veut-reprendre-le-controle-de-son-developpement
