Short Cuts is off this week, so we are sharing an absolutely shocking story from Commons' current season on mining in Canada. 

For a century, Canada was one of the world’s leading exporters of asbestos, most of it mined from the small town of Asbestos, Quebec. But during that time, governments and corporations in Canada did everything they could to hide the fact that asbestos is deadly.

They went to extraordinary lengths — secret organ smuggling, corporate-supervised police torture — to keep the ugly truth from the world.

Today, there’s no longer a town called Asbestos, QC. But more people than ever are dying from what was mined out of the ground there. 

Featured in this episode: Heidi von Palleske, Jessica van Horssen, Tavia Grant (The Globe and Mail)


To learn more:

A Town Called Asbestos: Environmental Contamination, Health, and Resilience in a Resource Community by Jessica van Horssen

“No Safe Use: The Canadian Asbestos Epidemic” by Tavia Grant in The Globe and Mail

“Asbestos: Canada’s Dirty Secret” by CBC’s Fifth Estate


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