The Playbook for a Challenged Industry: A Comparison of Coal and Asbestos

January 26, 2026

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By Kennedy Halvorson, AWA Conservation Specialist

Read the PDF version here.

“Banning industries is just not something we are going to do.”

On June 11, 2025, in a town hall in Fort Macleod packed to the brim with people concerned about coal, this is what the Premier of Alberta tells the crowd.

Now keep that moment in your mind; we’re rolling back the clock. It’s 2011, and Canada’s prime minister is on the campaign trail, stopped at a seniors’ residence in what is now called Val-des-Sources.

At the time, the town’s namesake was still shared with its main industry, one that Stephen Harper has just told reporters he has no plans to ban.

“This government will not put Canadian industry in a position where it is discriminated against in a market where it is permitted.”

Welcome to Asbestos, Quebec.

Once thought to be a miracle material for its durability, insulating, and heat-resistant properties, the use of asbestos was widespread; flooring, ceilings, siding, cements, plasters, piping, car parts, furnaces, and heating systems, you name it! What can’t asbestos do?

Its seemingly endless applications made it ubiquitous, and its ubiquity has made it deadly. Globally, more than 200,000 deaths per year are attributed to occupational asbestos exposure.

Its harm has been well documented, and its use in Canada largely restricted since the 1980s. But what does this all have to do with coal? Presenting, The Playbook for a Challenged Industry.

Deny

It’s hard to pin down when exactly people first realized asbestos was hazardous, but the turn of the 20th century marks when medical, scientific, and industry documents detailing its health impacts really began to build up. One of the earliest documented as having made the connection was Lucy Deane Streatfeild, an English factory inspector and suffragette. In her remarks for the 1898 Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, Deane Streatfeild captures key features of asbestos that allowed its champions to deny harm for many more decades to come.

As Lucy notes, asbestos works insidiously. Disease takes many years to manifest, and in symptoms easily ascribed to other sources. And so, her concerns were dismissed. Miners and manufacturers alike continued to collect asbestos fibres in their lungs, until their high rates of illness and mortality became hard for the major asbestos players to ignore.

But what’s a poor mining industry to do? Fear not: first, set your internal scientists and contracted consultants to clear your name, to determine the true cause of your workers’ poor health.

“They hoped the studies would show asbestos was not dangerous. Studies commissioned by asbestos manufacturer Johns-Manville, the Industrial Hygiene Foundation, and insurer Met-Life, however, showed that asbestos was not only as bad as silica but actually much worse, with asbestosis affecting both workers and miners regardless of adherence to threshold levels.”

– Christine Shearer, 2015, On Corporate Accountability: Lead, Asbestos, and Fossil Fuel Lawsuits

Bury the documents — transparency here would only breed calls for accountability. Time to shift blame, find a scapegoat.

Industry leaders worked to attribute the chronically inflamed and scarred lungs of their workers (and what we know today as asbestosis) not to exposure to asbestos fibres, but to other factors like poor working conditions and excessive smoking by employees.

“Housing conditions, and hurtful forms of recreation, especially alcoholism, undoubtedly cause the major amount of sickness. The mine itself is not an unhealthful place to work.”

– Dr. E.R. Hayhurst, 1919

Individuals will eventually speak out, those sickened from years in your mines, mills, and factories. Ignore them, bribe them, wait them out. Their claims will die alongside their stolen years. Publicly, deny any responsibility and wrongdoing, even as disease and death rates for your employees climb. To do otherwise, to assume liability, jeopardizes your bottom line and only substantiates the growing compensation claims and lawsuits.

The good thing about denial is that it works for many scenarios. As a rule, employ it for every issue that comes your way. So, when independent doctors, workers, and unions say asbestos isn’t just causing asbestosis, but lung cancer and mesothelioma too, deny!

As effective as denial can be, the burden of proof will grow too large to simply ignore. No matter.

Downplay and Deflect

“So called “miners’ asthma” is considered an ordinary condition that needs cause no worry and therefore the profession has not troubled itself about its finer pathological and associated clinical manifestations.”

– Dr. E.H. Rebhorn, 1935

By 1918, US federal agencies had documented a growing trend of asbestos workers being denied life insurance policies, while statistics were already indicating their abnormally high rates of early death. By the 1930s, asbestos was clearly established in the literature as the cause of asbestosis. In 1955, it was linked to lung cancer, and in 1960, to mesothelioma. By the end of the sixties, scientists had found that even minimal exposure to asbestos could cause mesothelioma.

It’s critical to emphasize that the knowledge was available and determined early on, to dispel any notion or claims that that the asbestos industry was unaware of the severity and extent of the harms they incurred. Industry knew; their own internal studies, exposed through lawsuits and litigation many years later, confirmed this. They just refused to take accountability for it.

The playbook says if you can’t hide the evidence, minimize the appearance of it. One effective way is to claim you can control it. The asbestos industry pivoted to assert that any health concerns existed only because, historically, companies had failed to use best management practices. Things were much better now!

“Continual efforts on the part of various operators, especially the Asbestos Corporation, are made to insure [sic] complete safety and cleanliness. Mills are continually being swept clear of the dust and sand that cover the floors. Cleanliness, safety, and labour-saving machinery are insisted upon.”

– M.M. Mendels, 1930, McGill University Economic Studies: The Asbestos Industry of Canada

While eulogizing how effectively you can mitigate harm, another great strategy is to bankroll your own experts to muddy the science and introduce doubt. Their controversial methodologies and data manipulation will eventually be exposed and rejected, but only long after you’ve made your profits.

In 1958, Drs. Daniel C. Braun and T. David Truan published a study that followed the health status of just under 6,000 men employed in Canadian asbestos mines for six years. Braun and Truan concluded that there was “no relationship between mortality and the degree of exposure” and “strong evidence against the carcinogenicity of asbestos”.

Despite criticisms for both its methodology (an observation period too short to capture lung cancer’s latency period) and sample demographics (the majority of miners observed were relatively young), it was praised and touted by industry as the largest and most comprehensive epidemiological study ever done on asbestos.

Of course, industry also paid for it.

The research was requested and funded by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association to counter the growing body of literature purporting asbestos’s negative health impacts. They would use Braun and Truan’s work, and other studies like it, to deny asbestos’s link to cancer for decades to come.

Even with “experts” now on board to confuse scientific discourse and sway public opinion, you’ll still need more power and influence to keep this mining industry afloat.

Time for some backroom dealing with government.

Lobby, delay, and discredit

There are multiple reasons you want good relations with the state. They approve the projects, set the regulations, and collect royalties, all things that impact your bottom line. And if you don’t want pesky red tape reducing profits for the beloved shareholders, it’s in your best interest to lobby against any additional requirements on your operations.

So, while industry seeking to influence government is nothing new, the lines of accountability and transparency become more fraught when it’s the government doing the lobbying.

Once home to the world’s largest asbestos mine and for a long time the heart of the global industry, asbestos was a major part Quebec’s economy. Consequently, despite the disease and death asbestos wrought on Canadian workers, Quebec and the federal government remained its staunchest defenders.

“Government asbestos policy before 1975 consisted in providing as hospitable a business climate as possible for foreign-owned mining companies”.

– Brian Tanguay, 1985, Quebec’s Asbestos Policy: A Preliminary Assessment

“It has been an abused industry. We’re determined to remove the abuse and let the industry grow again.”

– Robert Layton, Federal Minister of Mines, 1985

For the playbook to work, it’s critical to never be proactive or do more than you are required by law. Everything to delay meaningful action.

Industry had worked for decades to give the perception that there was a tolerable concentration for airborne asbestos in the workplace, railing against any efforts to decrease limits. They were aided in this effort by Canadian governments, who continuously ignored the science and lagged behind international peers like the UK and USA in strengthening health and safety regulations.

“A 1978 report prepared for the Quebec Minister of Natural Resources concluded that stricter safety measures to protect the health of asbestos workers could jeopardize the Quebec government’s chances of increasing profits, and that the government should work ‘to re-establish and protect as much as possible the reputation of asbestos.’”

– Gregory Allan Hein, 1990, Regulating a Miracle Substance: Politics of Asbestos in Canada and the United States

One of the ways they did this was by establishing and funding lobbyist organizations like the Asbestos Institute. Mandated to promote the “safe use of asbestos worldwide”, the Institute presented itself as an impartial and independent party; from 1984 to 2002, 54 million dollars, equal parts industry, provincial, and federal funds, were poured into their efforts.

Taxpayer money fuelled misinformation campaigns asserting that risk was minimal and disease rare. They claimed new techniques had been developed to make asbestos safe to handle. They asserted substitutes caused greater harm or were ineffective or uneconomical. The Institute’s bread and butter was the spreading of baseless claims for industry and government to cite in their justifications for resisting change.

When the U.S.’s Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) lowered the eight-hour exposure limit of asbestos to 0.2 fibres per cubic centimetre (f/cc) in 1986, the Institute petitioned the courts to reverse the change. At the time, Quebec allowed workers to be exposed to 5 f/cc, 25 times more asbestos fibres than their U.S. counterparts.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA ) announced the phased ban of asbestos just three years later, the Institute again attempted to obstruct progress via the courts.

Other lobbyists like the Mining Association of Canada put out a “plea for common sense,” accusing the EPA of keeling to public panic fuelled by “activist groups” with “alarmist views.”

Mining ministers at both the federal and provincial levels asserted that the strengthening of regulations and subsequent banning of asbestos in the U.S. was “unfair,” “political,” and “based on emotion rather than scientific evidence.”

Remember, a little political endorsement can go a long way in corroborating legitimacy.

“We are absolutely convinced that asbestos can be used safely. This is what gives me conviction that if we get an opportunity to present our arguments, we can win the case for asbestos.”

– Robert Layton, 1989, Federal Minister of Mines

If it’s not yet clear, as you lobby influence, you must also discredit the opposition: accuse them of using all the same tactics you actively employ. Those academics, epidemiologists, doctors, factory inspectors, lawyers, workers, victims, environmental groups, non-profits, unions, international authorities, other countries, and members of the public are all bought-and-paid, influenced by some anti-asbestos alliance working to harm industry.

And when all else fails, you can always just assume a new identity.

Rebrand

As asbestos increasingly became a synonym for cancer, industry sought to craft a new image. Asbestos takes one of six different forms, and the type mined in Quebec was predominantly one called chrysotile. Conveniently, it was the only one that wasn’t carcinogenic.

Or at least that’s what industry and government wanted folks to believe.

Remember all that research the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association was funding? They didn’t stop with Braun and Truan. After setting up front organizations to funnel money to unscrupulous researchers, the Association commissioned studies that would clear chrysotile’s name and lay the asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma blame on other types.

Some of the most infamous examples were authored by Dr. John Corbett McDonald, an occupational epidemiologist employed by McGill University. See, McDonald’s research claimed chrysotile was “essentially innocuous,” except at exposures “several orders of magnitude more severe than any that have been seen for many years,” a finding consistent with the positions of industry and government. According to McDonald, chrysotile was actually healthful; one study reported miners and millers in the chrysotile industry had lower mortality rates than the average population.

The studies have since been widely and repeatedly rejected for use of outdated, inaccurate techniques and data manipulation. But the damage had been done.

Asbestos’s favourite mouthpieces regurgitated chrysotile propaganda, claiming the science was on their side and downplaying real harm to keep a floundering industry afloat. Official emblems of the Canadian and Quebec governments emblazoned lobbyist publications, further legitimizing the efforts.

“Mr. Speaker, scientific reviews show that chrysotile fibres can be used safely in a controlled environment at the national or international level.”

— Christian Paradis, 2011, Federal Minister of Industry, House of Commons

“All scientific reviews clearly confirm that chrysotile fibres can be used safely in controlled conditions.”

— Joe Oliver, 2011, Ontario MP, House of Commons

The name changes allowed asbestos to elongate its lifespan, at least to overseas markets — Canada itself had long ceased using its own product. From the 1980s onwards, government regulations and legislation increasingly limited how asbestos, including chrysotile, could be manufactured and used by Canadians, in what amounted to a de facto ban within the country.

“Canada has been a major exporter of chrysotile… shipping about 150,000 tonnes per year to developing countries such as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, where little or no protection exists for workers or exposed populations…, with many workers not knowing that they contain asbestos or even what asbestos is.”

– Tony Kirby, 2010, Canada accused of hypocrisy over asbestos exports

Exporting cancer was not enough. In 2005, and again in 2011, Canada was the only member of the United Nation’s Rotterdam Convention, a multi-lateral treaty intended for countries to share any information and known risks associated with industrial chemicals, to veto the addition of chrysotile asbestos to the list of hazardous substances.

What? A little hypocrisy never stopped you before. Now’s not the time to give up!

The coal context

“Strip mining has not destroyed anything.”

– W.C. Whittaker, 1969, Coal Operators’ Association of Western Canada

If you haven’t already drawn the parallels, coal’s no stranger to this playbook. Industry’s actions on issues like black lung, acid rain, climate change, provide prime examples of it historically and considering current conversations in the province, it could play out again.

Will Albertans allow it?

When the Grassy Mountain coal mine was first proposed, company execs tried to pacify concerns by asserting this mine would be different. Much like the asbestos industry, they alleged new techniques to eliminate harm. Grassy was “specifically designed from the ground up to effectively capture and treat selenium in water sources.”

“Our greatest advantage lies in being able to place waste rock in locations where we can maximize the ability to collect and treat any water that contains selenium. There is a natural buffer zone along Blairmore and Gold Creeks to minimize impact to the aquatic environment and to leave migration routes for wildlife in the area.”

– Gary Houston, 2020, VP of Riversdale Resources (parent company of Benga Mining Limited)

But that wasn’t actually the case.

Instead, the joint federal-provincial review panel for the project found “the claimed effectiveness of the proposed measures was overly optimistic and not supported by the evidence provided.”

This hasn’t stopped them; the notion that the impacts of mining can be sustainably managed remains a key talking point of coal. The same effort to deny and downplay potential harm continues today.

Based on their most recent open houses, Northback will be “using state of the art technology” for water treatment and selenium management in their next Grassy Mountain proposal. According to the “Facts” section of their webpage, Mine 14 and Blackstone proponent Valory Resources will also be “deploying state-of-the-art systems in all facets of the company’s operations” to observe the “highest safety standards.”

Both aspiring miners are vague on specifics, but existing operations like Elk Valley Resources (EVR) similarly claim that “workplace health and safety, operational excellence and environmental responsibility are [their] top priorities,” and that they’re “maintaining stringent safety standards,” implementing best management practices, and “researching new technology” to protect the watershed. Instead, multi-million-dollar fines are becoming habitual for the company, which has a rampant record of non-compliance.

Despite the industry’s frightening frequency of failure in preventing pollution, these promises of best standards, practices, and technologies are parroted by government.

“We must protect our waterways and any future [coal] application will have to use the latest techniques and technologies… This will help prevent contaminants like selenium from ending up in our waterways.”

– Minister of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean, 2025, Bringing Alberta coal mining into the 21st century

“Alberta’s new standards for coal mining will be among the best in the world and the best in Canada.”

– Minister Jean, 2025, Coal Industry Modernization Initiative Press Conference

It’s clear the lobby’s been hard at work.

Headquartered in Edmonton, the current president of The Coal Association of Canada (CAC) is former Alberta Minister of the Environment, Robin Campbell. As with asbestos, Coal’s lobbyists and government are often one and the same, and industry frequently recruits those intimately familiar with the internal processes and people to do their bidding.

Since 2017, 14 former government officials, including past ministers, assistant deputy ministers, chief of staff, senior advisors, policy consultants, and more have been hired by the likes of Atrum Coal, Benga Mining, Cabin Ridge Holdings, Montem Resources, Ram River Resources, and Valory Resources to schmooze with old colleagues.

And it’s worked.

Months prior to the surprise rescission of the 1976 Coal Policy in 2020, then Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism, Tanya Fir, penned a letter of assurances to Valory Resources.

“Alberta is open for business.”

These dealings between government and industry are known only because of the dedicated work of concerned members of the public, investigative journalists, and Freedom of Information and Privacy legislation, not through any goodwill or transparency from Alberta’s authorities.

The federal government isn’t free from industry influence either. Lagging for years to publish Coal Mining Effluent Regulations that would set the total selenium limits for mine water releases, it looks like they will ultimately settle on a monthly average of 10 μg/L, industry’s preference. It’s ten times higher than advised in The Canadian Guidelines for the Protection of Aquatic Life. Their reasoning?

“Although new mines do not have pre-existing selenium issues and can be designed from the start to achieve low levels of selenium, concerns were raised by industry and provinces over the achievability of previously proposed new mine limits of 5 μg/L (monthly mean). ECCC is proposing to decrease the stringency of the regulatory standard for new mines to 10 μg/L.”

Whether due to economics or technical feasibility, asbestos also wasn’t keen on regulations that would require reducing asbestos concentrations. Consequently, mesothelioma claims the lives of 500 Canadians each year, almost half a century after its use was largely discontinued.

Coal’s now pushing forward with the rebrand. Companies of failed projects swap out their corporate identities to obscure the paper trail; Benga Mining became Northback Holdings, Montem Resources is now Evolve Power. Like asbestos, they’ve delineated their resource into types. Thermal coal = bad, metallurgical coal = good. Underground mining? Great. Surface mining? Well, is it open-pit, mountain-top, or strip? Doesn’t matter — the definitions are purposely vague for maximum confusion.

Regardless, all types will expand the human footprint in Alberta’s sensitive and important Eastern Slopes region. They all unearth byproduct chemicals alongside coal that would otherwise be stored deep underground and are now at risk of leaching into the environment. Both thermal and metallurgical coal release climate-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when burned.

Global scientific consensus is clear: fossil fuel production and use must decline to keep global warming below the 1.5°C threshold and within livable levels (remember, it’s not whether you can survive more extreme, frequent, and unpredictable climate conditions, it’s whether global food crops can). As the fourteenth largest exporter of coal in the world (and seventh for metallurgical coal), Canada’s participation in reducing emissions is not optional. Back in 2015, research found that the country must keep 82 percent of its 6.58 billion tonnes in remaining coal reserves unburned and underground before 2050. Since then, Canada’s extracted over 500 million more tonnes of coal, or 44 percent of the 45-year coal budget in a single decade. Here, the science is clear: this is an industry that cannot expand.

Those fighting this unnecessary and irresponsible environmental degradation are similarly characterized as asbestos’s opponents once were, as alarmists, activists, and anti-development. Efforts to discredit those justifiably concerned about Alberta’s public lands, waters, and resources include well-funded media campaigns, advertisements, op-eds, and industry-fuelled grassroots organizing, otherwise known as astroturfing.

Scientists have been the target of industry, too. As discussed in the last Wild Lands Advocate, experts with the Alberta Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas are putting out great research on the past, present, and future impacts of coal, even if their bosses won’t listen. The CAC has been quick to issue rebuttals to the research and dispute the scientific findings. Notably, these “critical reviews” are authored by the same environmental consultants contracted by industry to help prepare coal mine applications.

The government’s messaging has similarly misrepresented science, albeit in different ways.

During the Fort Macleod town hall, Brian Jean, Minister of Energy and Minerals, queried the crowd: “Twenty, 30 years ago, did we even know selenium was an issue? We didn’t.” He assured the crowd the government was doing everything to protect Albertans.

“We continue to monitor, continue to listen to the experts and continue to get evidence.”

Even a cursory glance at the literature reports that selenium toxicity was known at least as early as 1842 . Papers dating back to the 1960s show how folks knew it could bioaccumulate and contaminate the environment when mining coal.

As asbestos’s before them, coal proponents offer distractions and perpetuate mistruths.

“The Coal Association of Canada and all of its members are fully committed to the responsible development of coal. Canadian coal is among the most ethically and responsibly mined in the world. Canada’s coal industry follows strict provincial and federal regulations to protect the environment and minimize the industry’s impact on waterways, wildlife and natural habitat. We welcome comprehensive regulation and oversight.”

– Robin Campbell, 2021, CAC president

Evolve Power welcomed “comprehensive regulation and oversight” by fighting for two years with the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to establish a selenium monitoring program on Tent Mountain. Valory Resources has shown its commitment to mining coal “ethically and responsibly” by repeatedly questioning the need for a public hearing on their Mine 14 project, then circumventing established regulatory processes by appealing directly to the AER’s CEO and the Minister of Energy and Minerals to get it cancelled. The Cheviot, Gregg River, and Luscar Mines south of Hinton demonstrate just how “strict” the provincial and federal regulations are, with government researchers recently noting that “reclamation criteria are failing to achieve the desired outcomes and regulatory objectives” as the mine sites “continue to impair water quality despite closure and reclamation.” For Atrum Coal, Black Eagle Mining, Cabin Ridge, Elan Coal, Evolve Power, and Northback Holdings, the “responsible development of coal” involves suing Alberta for upwards of 15 billion dollars when the regulations don’t serve industry interests.

These coal case-studies and asbestos comparisons are endless, but the playbook must end somewhere.

The last death rattle of a dying industry

Even with the immense funding, resources, and influence of industry, government, and lobbyists concentrated in the country to deny evidence, downplay harm, deflect blame, and delay action, Canada finally and officially banned all import, use, and export of asbestos in 2018.

Sure, it took more than a century of ceaseless advocacy, litigation, research, public pressure, and international scorn, but it’s possible.

Canada has banned, and can ban, industries.

Harper can eat his words. Smith could learn a thing or two.

Regardless of commitments, regulations, or technologies employed, some industries cannot safely operate. Just as asbestos could not protect its workers, coal hasn’t demonstrated it can sufficiently safeguard the watersheds, landscapes, or atmosphere from its impacts. The unmitigable risks to human health and the environment are simply too great. No amount of perceived economic benefits are justifiable.

But, if coal wants to follow asbestos’s playbook, let it meet the same fate.