Canada's Chrysotile Institute shuts down after three decades of pro-asbestos lobbying

The Chrysotile Institute was established in 1984 to promote the "safe use" of chrysotile asbestos on behalf of Canada's mining industry, principally the mines in Thetford Mines and Asbestos, Quebec. Its core argument was that asbestos, when handled under controlled conditions, poses little risk to workers. Public health authorities and independent researchers disagreed.

The institute ran advocacy campaigns in Asian and other developing-world markets using millions of dollars of public money from the Quebec and federal governments. Long after France, the United Kingdom, Germany and other industrialized countries had banned asbestos, consumption grew in countries such as India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, in part driven by the institute's efforts. The Canadian Labour Congress noted in May 2012 that all of Canada's asbestos exports went to developing countries.

The closure came weeks after a CBC Television documentary, broadcast on The National in early February 2012, examined the institute's funding of asbestos research at McGill University. The documentary revealed that the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association paid professor John Corbett McDonald and other McGill researchers at least $1 million between 1966 and 1972 for studies on the health effects of chrysotile. Critics argued the industry-funded research was designed to produce favorable findings, and that the Canadian and Quebec governments were still citing it to justify continued asbestos exports.

The broadcast set off weeks of public debate. McGill issued a statement, then announced a preliminary review of 25 years of asbestos-related research. Medical doctors and health researchers publicly called on the university to stop supporting asbestos exports. The Montreal Gazette and CBC News covered the widening pressure; critics described McGill's initial statement as "cowardly", and one commentator described opposition to asbestos as having reached a "critical mass".

NDP Member of Parliament Pat Martin, a longtime critic of the asbestos industry and a former miner himself, called the institute's dissolution the "death knell" of asbestos mining in Canada. At the time of the announcement, the two Quebec asbestos mines had both stopped production for the first time in 130 years.

Kathleen Ruff, senior human-rights adviser at the Rideau Institute, said the closure sent a clear signal to the international community that the industry was collapsing in Canada. "It will be noticed all around the world because the Chrysotile Institute has been the key leader in pushing the interests of the asbestos industry around the world," she said.