Extreme? Consider: if I feed you poison, drop by drop, day by day, knowing full well that eventually you could die an excruciating death, what does that make me?

These two politicians are directly responsible for sending tons of deadly poison—asbestos—to the Third World, in the certain knowledge that they are condemning workers there to a long and painful death. The World Health Organization has told them. The Canadian Medical Association has told them. Health Canada has told them.

In Canada we would call this criminal negligence at the very least. But asbestos is not used here. The stuff is just for countries where life is cheaper and on-the-job health and safety is not a consideration.

So the Quebec government has given substantial loan guarantees to help expand asbestos production for export. And Harper shamelessly pandered to the asbestos lobby during the last election campaign. Where there’s a buck to be made and votes to be won, the lives of brown people somewhere else, to put it bluntly, don’t matter a rat’s ass. They’re expendable.

So committed are these poisoners to their trade that they have blocked the addition of asbestos to the list of dangerous products maintained under the Rotterdam Convention.

As the columnist at the first link says, this simply amounts to a warning label. Nope. They don’t want their intended victims warned. And so they’ll be back at it next week, even if they’re being coy about it at the moment.

Cold-blooded killers. What else would you call them?