Asbestos Legislation

A member of the Quebec National Assembly recently presented a motion that would have seen the Canadian province withdraw its offer to help finance the reopening of an asbestos mine. Unfortunately, the legislation failed.

Lisette Lapointe, who is the wife of former Parti Québécois premier Jacques Parizeau and an independent, introduced the motion that would have seen Quebec withdraw its offer to guarantee a $58 million loan to the Jeffrey Mine in the aptly-named town of Asbestos, according to the Montreal Gazette.

While Lapointe was able to get the votes of some independents and lawmakers from lesser parties, her motion went largely unsupported.

"What disappoints us very much, to see that here the Liberal Party, the Parti Québécois, they don’t say a word today," Lapointe said. "They refused to support our motion."

The motion noted that the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is associated with the World Health Organization, says that asbestos "is carcinogenic in all its forms."

Indeed, exposure to the naturally occurring substance has been proven to cause a range of serious illnesses including asbestosis, lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma, a rare and deadly cancer that typically affects the membrane that lines the lungs.