Thundersky wants public inquiry over asbestos insulation

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This article was published 21/02/2008 (6642 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An aboriginal woman whose family was decimated by cancer is calling for a public inquiry after she dropped a lawsuit against a company linked to a toxic form of home insulation.

Raven Thundersky made her call public today at a press conference in Winnipeg.

She said Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government acknowledged her call last month through Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl. But that’s the extent of the response.

Now the activist warns she’ll head to The Hague, where a human rights case before the World Court could embarrass Canada before the whole world.

“By the end of March, If they don’t call a public inquiry, I will go to The Hague,” Thundersky said in an interview.

Thundersky’s spent years fighting for a sense of justice over zonolite, a kind of asbestos insulation used decades ago in homes and businesses until it its health related risks were discovered.

The company that mined the raw material for the insulation is bankrupt and after years of pursuing a lawsuit against the manufacturer, Thundersky hit a final roadblock when Canadian courts said she can’t sue the American company. And in the United States, the company is protected by bankruptcy laws.

That leaves no other choice but to take the case to the political arena, she said.

The insulation was first used in at least 600 First Nation homes starting in the 1950s and it is still in 300,000 Canadian homes today.

This month marks the 12th anniversary of the first death her family. Her sister died from a cancer called mesothelioma, a lung cancer linked almost exclusively to asbestos.

Since that first death 12 years ago, Thundersky has buried four more close relatives, three from mesothelioma and one from asbestosis. Five more members of her family are ill with asbestos-related diseases. She, herself, has asbestosis.

Forty-six bags Zonolite were used in the attic of the family home in Poplar River First Nation back in 1964 when Thundersky was a little girl.

“It wasn’t up to my parents what (insulation) went into the home. That was up to the Indian agent, the superintendent of Indian agents, in Norway House (another Manitoba First Nation). He was the one who had the final say,” Thundersky said.

Zonolite was made from the mineral vermiculate, which came from a WR Grace mine in Montana that was tainted with naturally occurring deposits of asbestos.

The mine was ordered to restructure and develop a settlement fund for victims of Zonolite, like Thundersky.

Thundersky is shifting her tactics because a court in Ontario stayed her lawsuit against the manufacturer of Zonolite in 2005.

She feels the environmental and health injuries are complicated by human rights abuses related to federal policies in that era for aboriginal people like her.

alexandra.paul@freeepress.mb.ca