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Marc-Alexandre Brousseau sounds fed up.

Brousseau is mayor of Thetford Mines, the largest town in Quebec’s former asbestos mining region, just a few hours’ drive northeast of Montreal.

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The way Brousseau sees it, exaggerated claims about the dangers of asbestos caused the slow collapse of the asbestos mining industry, which resulted in economic devastation for his town and region. The federal government’s recent ban on the sale and use of asbestos has put the final nail in that coffin.

Now, a handful of companies in the region hope to extract valuable materials like magnesium from the asbestos mining residues — those massive grey mounds piled in and around the towns of Thetford Mines and Asbestos. Lobbyists and economic interests in the region succeeded in convincing the federal government to leave mining residues out of the ban, so that these projects can go ahead.

But once again, Brousseau says, the “unrealistic” concerns of public health officials are threatening to slow or even scuttle these promising new projects.