Pat Martin condemns asbestos backers to face justice in hell

Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin once worked in an asbestos mine and often speaks out against the promotion of chrysotile asbestos as a safe product for Canada to export.

He's also fond of expressing his opinions using colourful language.

He used his member's statement prior to question period in the House of Commons on Monday to condemn the Harper government's support for Quebec's struggling asbestos industry.

Martin's outburst follows a CBC investigation into allegations that a major 40-year study on asbestos safety by a group of scientists at McGill University contained manipulated data. The Chrysotile Institute — a lobby arm funded by, overseen and closely associated with both Liberal and Conservative governments — used the findings of the McGill study to market Canadian asbestos overseas.

Here's the full text of Martin's statement:

Mr. Speaker, the best science money can buy has been used to justify and defend exporting a made-in-Canada asbestos epidemic throughout the developing world, but the Conservatives and their Asbestos Institute can no longer hide behind thephoney researchthey bought and paid for.

I rise today to condemn the Conservatives for their boosterism and cheerleading of the asbestos cartel and the human misery it causes. I condemn the scientists and researchers who compromise their professional integrity and thereputationof ourgreat university. Dante should have reserved a special level of hell for the charlatans and the fraudsters of the government-sponsored Asbestos Institute who knowingly and willingly conspired to hide the effects of asbestos exposure from the world. I denounce them in the strongest possible terms. I pray that some day their treachery and deceit leads to criminal charges of corporate manslaughter so that they may face justice in this world as well.