Feds Promise Action on Asbestos Ban: Action by Ottawa welcomed by Sarnia activities
The Observer 15 December 2016 | Paul Morden
Sandy Kinart was holding back tears Thursday after hearing Canada will ban asbestos in 2018.
Kinart, with the group Victims of Chemical Valley, has worked for years alongside others in Sarnia and elsewhere to see an end to the use of the material that has had a deadly impact on the community.
“This has been a very long time coming,” she said.
“I am ecstatic, and over the moon.”
A group of federal cabinet ministers announced Thursday in Ottawa that the government will move to ban asbestos and asbestos-containing products by 2018, fulfilling a Liberal campaign promise.
“We still have to wait and see what this all means, but it's a huge step forward, an absolutely huge step forward,” Kinart said.
“It's all I can do now to hold my tears back.”
Sarnia-Lambton has been a hot spot for asbestos-caused disease, including mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the lungs caused by exposure to asbestos.
The material was used heavily in industry and construction, and the incident of mesothelioma in men in Sarnia-Lambton, between 2000 and 2009, was approximately five times the Ontario average, according to the Ontario Cancer Registry.
Kinart's husband, Blayne Kinart, became sick with mesothelioma and died in 2004.
Kinart said a total of four members of her family have died of mesothelioma, and a cousin whose father worked at the former Holmes Foundry has scarring on her lungs.
“A lot of people become secondary victims because of the dust transfer,” Kinart said.
Victims of Chemical Valley was formed by widows and other relatives of victims of industrial disease, and for years the group has been among those pushing for improved health services for sick workers, as well as ban on asbestos mining and use.
Asbestos-related diseases have been on the rise in Canada, with Statistics Canada noting the number of new cases of mesothelioma grew from 335 cases in 200 to 580 in 2013.
Asbestos-caused diseases also include other lung cancers and asbestosis, and it can be decades after exposure when illnesses begin to appear.
“It's not going to change what's happening in our community, unfortunately, because we're living the legacy of asbestos, here,” Kinart said.
“But what I see for the future is our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, and those coming after us, will not have to go through, hopefully, what we have experienced.”
When city council in Sarnia passed a resolution back in 2001 calling for an end to the exporting of asbestos still being mined then in Canada, it was the first municipality in the country to take that step, said Mayor Mike Bradley.
“It was an uphill battle,” he said Thursday.
“We just could not get it to be a national issue.”
It was another decade before Canada stopped mining asbestos, and Thursday’s announcement by the government in Ottawa comes after more than 50 countries around the world have already banned asbestos.
The legacy of asbestos has been painful for the community, and it continues, Bradley said.
“It's not unusual, with mesothelioma, to see in The Observer obituaries night after night.”
Thursday's announcement is a tribute to those in the community who have been working to raise the alarm about the danger of asbestos, Bradley said.
“They were determined that no one else would be exposed, whether it be here or in some third world country.”
Point Edward resident Margaret Buist said Thursday she felt as if a large weight had been lifted off her.
“My husband would have been so glad.”
Harry Buist, a carpenter who worked in maintenance at Imperial Oil, was 58 when he died in 1996 of mesothelioma.
“He wanted to be very public about his illness, because he wanted to make a difference for younger people coming into the work place,” Buist said.
There was little attention paid to the disease at the time he was diagnosed, and the couple spoke with a neighbour who worked for the Canadian Cancer Society, leading to a mesothelioma information session being organized at the library theatre downtown.
Buist said the neighbour warned the session might only attract three or four people.
“I would say it was more than two-thirds full,” Buist said.
The World Health Organization declared asbestos a human carcinogen in 1987. Its production and use has declined since the 1970s, but products containing asbestos continue to be imported into Canada, including in building materials and auto parts.
Even today, Buist said she hears from many people who assume asbestos is already banned.
She remembers attending a fundraising breakfast 18 or 19 years ago that featured a visiting federal cabinet minister. Buist said that when she approached the minister to ask for support for a ban in Canada, the minister was under the impression it already was.
In a news release Thursday, the federal government said it will create new regulations banning the manufacture, use, importing and exporting of asbestos under the Environmental Protection Act, and establish new federal workplace health and safety rules that will drastically limit the risk of workers coming into contact with asbestos.
It also said the government will expand an online list of asbestos-containing buildings it owns or leases, and work with provinces and territories to change building codes to prohibit use of asbestos in new construction and renovation projects across Canada.
The federal government also said it will update Canada's international position regarding the listing of asbestos as a hazardous material.
“Sarnia has had an epidemic of mesothelioma . . . so I'm happy to see the ban,” said Sarnia-Lambton MP Marilyn Gladu, the Conservative science critic.
“I think everybody recognizes it's a health hazard and now the real question is, what's the plan forward?”
As well as banning imports, there are questions about asbestos that already exists, she said.
“Obviously, in Sarnia we have facilities that still have asbestos and need to be remediated, so we need to understand what are the implications, there.”
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