Canada blocks UN from declaring asbestos a “hazardous” substance

Canada’s Conservative government has prevented asbestos—a notorious carcinogen responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year—from being listed as a hazardous substance under the United Nations’ Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade.

Canada had hoped other countries would take the lead in blocking greater regulation of asbestos exports at last month’s conference of the signatories to the Rotterdam Convention, thus enabling it to avoid public odium.

Even as the conference delegates were assembling in Geneva, Canadian officials, including Environment Minster Peter Kent, either denied Canada would vote against listing chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous material or claimed that the matter was of so little concern to the government that they did not know what its policy was.