Roch Lanthier of AVAQ, Canada Passed Away on 30 January, 2005 3 Feb 2005 16:28:52 -0000 From: "tushar kant joshi" To: "Brophy,Jim" Dear Jim, It is that by writing again and again about Roch the grief is reduced. Sorrow shared is halved. By his behavior and looks, he resembled an Indian Rishi. Rishi was the highest title in ancient India conferred on those who were enlightened and lived life for others as Roch did. I also did not know him well but his body language revealed it all. While in Tokyo he was telling me how he would arrange a meeting in Canada where one or two of us could come to educate the Canadian Indians. That was not to be. My wife had little interaction with him in Tokyo and was dumbfounded when yesterday I told her all this. We owe him some thing. We must carry on from where he left us. Death is the only real and certain event in life. He is no more but we all cherish his grit and desire to work for others. We all here feel deeply moved at this startling turn of events but hope to carry on to do what he would have expected us to. TK Thu, 3 Feb 2005 11:01:12 -0500 Dear Friends, I have just returned from a two day conference in Toronto on occupational cancer where the issue of Canadian asbestos and the high incidence of mesothelioma in Ontario and Quebec were discussed. When I opened my email to discover that Roch had died, I was shocked and saddened beyond words. Roch and I had been in close contact over the last few months in planning a strategy to bring Canadian and Quebec activists together to develop a plan to build a larger Canadian constituency to fight for an international ban on asbestos and a just transition for the Quebec mining communities. He was waiting for my comments on our draft letter and now of course I will never have the chance to talk with him....We were both planning to propose to the larger group that we bring someone from India to Canada for a cross country speaking tour.... I did not know Roch extremely well, but from the first time we met in Ottawa at the asbestos conference, we establish a real bond. I liked him a lot and found his sense of humour and vitality so appealing. Roch was an exceptional community organizer. I felt like I learned something from him every time we spoke. I believe that he and his Quebec colleagues were pursuing a serious and essential undertaking in Quebec that would lay the basis for a real challenge to the federal government's policy of support for the asbestos industry. They were doing this without any money. Such commitment is rare and it is something for which I hold him and the others in the highest of respect. I am speechless about his premature death. I feel like I've lost a dear friend and comrade.... Jim 2 February, 2005 Very shocking news! His presence gave really great impetus to the Global Asbestos Congress 2004 in Tokyo (GAC2004). I would like to offer our condolences on behalf of the Organizing Committee of GAC2004. Sugio FURUYA Secretary General GAC 2004 Organizing Committee 1 February, 2005 Laurie, This indeed is a shocking news. We have lost a person committed to the core whom I got an opportunity to know better in Tokyo and had planned some activities together. It is an irreparable loss. My heart goes out to our Canadian colleagues. TK Tushar Kant Joshi Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, India On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 Laurie Kazan-Allen wrote : Dear All: Very distressing news from Canada. Laurie Monday, January 31, 2005 3:48 AM Dear Laurie, I have a terrible news to tell you. Our dear friend Roch Lanthier has died suddenly yesterday night. It is a terrible miss. I join a photo taken last summer, as we just ended our campaign of air sampling in houses in Thetford Mines. We were Roch, myself and Richard Rousseau. Micheline Marier 1 February, 2005 Dear All, Roch Lanthier of the Asbestos Victims Association of Quebec (AVAQ), Canada is no more. Roch was deeply concerned about the plight of asbestos victims in Quebec and India. Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) and AVAQ had plans of pursuing the asbestos interests in close collaboration in order to expose them. BANI is saddened by his sudden demise. It seems just yesterday, three of us-Roch Lanthier, Annie and myself were exchanging notes on language and linguistics. At Global Asbestos Congress (GAC), 2004 in Tokyo, he informed us about how AVAQ was founded to help asbestos victims and their families with medical, legal, environmental and personal issues, to make the population more aware of the situation through the media, and to develop alliances with other groups. AVAQ under his guidance has proposed an international moratorium on the use and production of asbestos until a really safe way of using it can be found and applied everywhere. The most important asbestos-mining area in Canada is situated in the province of Quebec, in the city of Thetford Mines and its surroundings. In an area of roughly 40 km by 3 km there are more than 30 tailings dumps from both disused and active chrysotile mines. Soil tests show the content of these tailings is 10% chrysotile. Many houses are built very close to the tailings, sometimes less than 100 meters away, and residues from the tailings are widely used for landscaping. Women of this area have the highest level of mesothelioma in the world, twice the second-highest level registered. Roch had informed GAC of different approaches being considered to control the pollution caused by these tailings. Four major aspects have to be taken in consideration: the stabilization of the soils, the disposal of the soils, the irrigation of the sites and revegetation. He felt that since the adequate regeneration of these sites would necessitate huge financial and technical resources, it has to be envisioned in the context of an overall environmental and socio-economic regeneration of the area. Focus should be put on high added-value income-generating projects in order to attract private and institutional investment, he advised. He has compelled me to ponder and introspect over the brevity of life therefore; one must do things in right earnest. I was thinking of writing to him one of these days to do a follow of what we had planned to do to put pressure on asbestos industry. Roch had great fascination for Indian philosophy. Infact he was truly an Indian at heart. He had lived in Hardwar, one of the most spiritual cities in India. He was also a disciple of one spiritual teacher. Although I had met him in Ottawa at the "Canadian Asbestos: a Global Concern" conference and exchanged messages, it was only our meeting in Tokyo that revealed the real Roch to me. He seemed so aware and conscious of Vedantic Truth, interestingly his consciousness was based on both intuitiveness and experience. He expressed his views in unusually non-verbose manner about the subtle existence of our being. He felt that I would understand him better; people in Quebec find his views incomprehensible. Roch was of the view that "we never cease to exist". I agreed with him then and I agree with him now as well. warm regards Gopal Krishna BANI-Toxics Link, India