WEB OF INTRIGUE
Ottawa’s revised position on chrysotile, of which Canada used to be a major exporter, is expected to be among the talking points at the Rotterdam Convention conference now underway in Geneva. So, too, is the strange case of Robert Moore, who faces legal a
As Canada joins other nations in Geneva to push for action against asbestos, a corporate-espionage case with a Montreal connection is unfolding in Britain. Michelle Lalonde untangles the threads.
This week in Geneva, delegates to a conference of the parties to the Rotterdam Convention are again discussing whether chrysotile asbestos should be put on the list of hazardous substances.
One hot topic is sure to be Canada, which until 2012 was a major exporter of chrysotile — the most common form of asbestos — and opposed its inclusion on the hazardous list.
However, Ottawa has recently and dramatically changed its tune.
“When it comes to asbestos, the scientific evidence is clear,” Science Minister Kirsty Duncan said in an April 21 statement, just days before the conference got underway.
“Irrefutable evidence has led us to take concrete action to swiftly ban asbestos and to support the listing of chrysotile asbestos to the Rotterdam Convention.”
The listing of asbestos would mean countries that export it would have to get prior informed consent from importing countries, which could block or set conditions on such imports.
But perhaps an even hotter topic at the conference is the case of Robert Moore, who is being sued in Britain on allegations he spied on members of the anti-asbestos movement for four years.
Moore attended the last meeting of the Rotterdam Convention, in 2015, under false pretences. As his case unfolds in the High Court of Justice in London, details about who he might have been working for are coming to light.
And there is a curious Canadian connection.
Maybe it was his friendly face, his polite and helpful manner, the disarmingly candid way he had of sharing bits of his personal life.
In emails, he’d chat about the recent retreat he’d just come back from, or a new diet he was trying.
He might offer to take minutes at a meeting.
Maybe it was the zeal he expressed for the anti-asbestos cause.
Somehow, for four years, Robert Moore managed to win and keep the confidence of leaders of the anti-asbestos movement around the world, including several in Canada and the U.S.
Using his legitimate credentials as a filmmaker, Moore posed as a passionate anti-asbestos crusader working on a documentary to support their cause.
It’s alleged he managed to infiltrate private meetings, gather data on movement leaders and attend conferences, sometimes as a representative of one of the organizations he was spying on.
“By attending our conferences, Rob Moore was able to mingle with the leading asbestos experts in the world,” said Linda Reinstein, cofounder of the Washington, D.C.based Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.
Reinstein lost her husband in 2006 to mesothelioma caused by occupational asbestos exposure. She told the Montreal Gazette her organization paid Moore’s travel expenses to attend two ADAO conferences in 2013 and 2015.
“ADAO is out thousands of dollars as a result of inviting and paying for Rob Moore’s expenses,” she said in a phone interview.
But worse than the financial cost, she said, is the feeling of betrayal.
“It is shocking and unforgivable to see this happen at an asbestos victims conference. Haven’t we suffered enough?”
Reinstein said she is following Moore’s court case closely and hopes he will be punished “to the full extent of the law.”
The legal action in Britain was taken by five anti-asbestos campaigners who say they were deceived by Moore. Reinstein said she is considering launching a similar lawsuit in the U.S.
Kathleen Ruff, a leading Canadian anti-asbestos campaigner, is considering the same. She first met Moore at a 2012 conference in Thailand.
“He presented himself as a journalist and seemed very committed to our efforts and said he wanted to make a documentary,” Ruff said in a phone interview from her home in Smithers, B.C.
“He had already gained credibility with the IBAS (International Ban Asbestos Secretariat) in London. He sounded credible and I had no reason to believe otherwise.”
Ruff subsequently put him in touch with Canadian scientists, activists and journalists.
“Over a period of four years I spoke to him often by email and phone. He became totally embedded in our activities.”
Ruff eventually helped Moore get accreditation to attend the 2015 Rotterdam Convention conference as a representative of the Rotterdam Convention Alliance, of which she is founder and coordinator.
She said he seemed very curious about the issue of funding.
“He would ask, ‘Who do you know in Canada who funds anti-asbestos work?’ He would say, ‘This documentary is really important, where can I get funding?’
“I said, ‘I have no idea. I have no contact with funders. I pay for my advocacy work out of my retirement savings, out of my own pocket.’
“I believe what he was doing was desperately trying to get information about money behind anti-asbestos advocacy.”
Ruff said Moore asked her to put him in touch with Canadian government officials sympathetic to the anti-asbestos cause, but she refused because “it was a sensitive time when we were hoping the government would make a decision to ban asbestos.”
Moore apparently blew his cover last June when, according to the claimants in the British case, he met with representatives of Global Witness, an anti-corruption charity.
In September, the charity informed lawyers at Leigh Day, a London law firm that specializes in asbestos cases, that Moore was spying on the anti-asbestos campaign.
Leigh Day lawyer Harminder Bains and four other anti-asbestos campaigners are suing Moore and the corporate intelligence-gathering firm K2 Intelligence Ltd. for breach of privacy and unlawful use of personal data under Britain’s Data Protection Act.
Among the claimants is Laurie Kazan-Allen, founder of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat. Moore and K2 have yet to file their defence.
Ruff said she was horrified when she heard the news about Moore.
“Here was someone who really seemed to care,” she said. “To find out he was being paid by a secret entity to defeat our efforts was just extremely hard to hear. It was like a kick in the gut. It has caused me great distress.”
The “secret entity” that contracted K2 Intelligence, which in turn hired Moore, was protected by a publication ban — until recently.
In newly unsealed court documents obtained by the Montreal Gazette, lawyers for the defendants say K2 Intelligence contracted Moore to gather information about anti-asbestos campaigners at the request of Nurlan Omarov, a Kazakh consultant to a chrysotile mine in Kazakhstan.
Omarov is an official lobbyist at the Rotterdam Convention. He is also listed in Quebec’s business registry as one of 10 directors of the Montreal-based International Chrysotile Association.
The ICA is a private, not-forprofit organization whose aim is to promote the use of chrysotile asbestos globally.
The group was founded in the U.K. as the Asbestos International Association in 1976. It moved to Montreal in 1997, at a time when Canada was a major exporter of asbestos, and subsequently changed its name.
Ruff wonders whether the ICA had anything to do with Moore’s intelligence-gathering activities.
“Was Omarov acting as a representative of the ICA or as a consultant to a mine?” she asks.
The Gazette tried to contact Omarov as well as ICA president JeanMarc Leblond to pose that very question. Calls were not returned.
The Gazette then sent a message asking whether Omarov was acting for the ICA in hiring Moore, and whether it condones such strategies for acquiring information on the anti-asbestos movement.
A response was received from communications consultant Catherine Escojido:
“At the request of Mr. Jean-Marc Leblond, I am informing you that the ICA will not comment concerning the Rotterdam Convention or the chrysotile file. The association’s position can be consulted on our website.”
The website bears no mention of the spying scandal, but brochures on the site summarize the reasons the industry opposes inclusion of chrysotile on the Rotterdam Convention’s hazardous substance list.
The United Nations Rotterdam Convention requires that countries obtain prior informed consent from any country to which they wish to export a hazardous substance.
The convention’s scientific committee has repeatedly recommended that chrysotile be put on the Prior Informed Consent list because it meets the criteria.
The world has known for decades that exposure to asbestos, including chrysotile, causes several forms of cancer and other deadly illnesses. More than 50 countries have banned all forms of asbestos.
Still, the asbestos industry has found new markets in developing countries, particularly in Asia.
The World Health Organization estimates that 107,000 workers die from asbestos exposure every year. It is the top cause of workplacerelated deaths in Canada.
The industry likes to stress that other forms of asbestos are more dangerous than chrysotile. It says 95 per cent of the asbestos sold in the past century was chrysotile, and it is the only form of asbestos that has been traded in the past 30 years.
At every Rotterdam Convention conference since 2006, a small number of countries that mine and sell the fibre — such as Russia, Kazakhstan and, until recently, Canada — have objected to its listing or lobbied behind the scenes to get other countries to object.
Because the Rotterdam Convention works by consensus, any country that is party to it and doesn’t want a substance listed has, in effect, a veto.
Health Minister Jane Philpott made Canada’s new position clear a few days before the start of the April 24 to May 5 conference: “Breathing in asbestos fibres is known to cause cancer and other devastating illnesses. The government of Canada is committed to reducing exposure to asbestos, and that’s why we are developing regulations to ban asbestos, as well as supporting the listing of chrysotile asbestos to the Rotterdam Convention.”
For its part, the ICA’s position paper states that if chrysotile is placed on the Prior Informed Consent list, it will cause chrysotile to be “blacklisted” and to “experience discrimination in international trade up to ban of import.”
“Any country could just refuse to import a substance or demand additional requirements” such as additional insurance or packing, the documents states, which would increase prices.
“Exporters will face declining volumes of shipments on international markets because of these restrictions.”
This is, of course, exactly what the anti-asbestos movement hopes will happen.
However, observers predict Russia and Kazakhstan will likely succeed in breaking consensus again.
A coalition of African countries has filed a motion to change the rules so that a substance could be listed with the support of 75 per cent of nations party to the convention, if consensus is not reached.
Ruff said the amendment is controversial and not a shoo-in to pass, but it might be the only hope for using the Rotterdam Convention to protect people in developing countries from the ravages of asbestos exposure.
Still, for those who want to see an end to asbestos use, these developments are good news. The U.K. court case alleging dirty tactics by the industry, coupled with Canada’s newly tough stance, won’t help the global chrysotile trade.