It has been announced that asbestos is the leading cause of workplace-related death among workers in the Canadian province of Quebec. In fact, the asbestos problem is so bad that roughly 60 percent of all such fatalities in 2009 can be attributed to asbestos, according to Quebec’s workers compensation board. The board, known as the CSST, announced that their data lists 104 Quebec workers who died as a result of an occupational disease from January 1^st until the end of August. Of those, 61 died from an asbestos-related condition.

This news is consistent with other reports from around Canada. It has also been reported that the number of new cases of mesothelioma reported shot up 67 percent over the past fifteen years. Mesothelioma, a cancer of the organs and lining of the abdominal cavity, affects thousands of people worldwide each year. Sadly, most people diagnosed with mesothelioma are told that they may have only six months to two years to live.

Unfortunately, the number of mesothelioma cases appears to be growing this each passing year, a trend that is expected to continue. "These are pernicious and chronic diseases that will keep on killing workers for decades," said Fernand Turcotte, an emeritus professor of public health at Université Laval.

In fact, the problem may be even worse than it appears. According to Larry Stoffman, an occupational health-and-safety consultant who works with the Canadian Labour Congress, there may be a large number of undiagnosed or unreported cases of mesothelioma all across Canada. "About 60 per cent of the cases aren’t registered. That’s a pretty big number," he said. "And that’s only for mesothelioma, it doesn’t factor in lung cancers."

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