Pandora’s box opens on Quebec’s deadly asbestos legacy

As an independent commission deepens its investigation into what should be done with the mountains of asbestos-laced residues in Quebec’s former asbestos mining regions, a disturbing picture is emerging of the broader public health threat that Quebec’s asbestos legacy poses.

The Bureau des audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) was given a ten-month mandate last fall to advise the government on whether the 800 million tonnes of tailings should be left undisturbed, levelled and covered with vegetation, or reprocessed to extract valuable commodities.

But the BAPE investigation is opening up the whole Pandora’s box of Quebec’s asbestos legacy, exposing the full impact of the deadly fibre in the mining regions and beyond for the first time in the industry’s 140-year history. It’s turning into a reckoning.

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