Kathleen Ruff honoured for her anti-asbestos advocacy

kathleen-ruffHRHuman rights champion, long time anti-asbestos activist and Rideau Institute Board member Kathleen Ruff is to receive the Medal of the Quebec National Assembly for her:

 …decade of work to stop Canada’s asbestos trade, work that some argue will save tens of thousands of people from contracting deadly asbestos-related diseases in Canada and abroad. “

Michelle Lalonde, in a feature article for the Montreal Gazette, catalogues this herculean effort as well as providing an insightful portrait of one of Canada’s leading human rights activists. See: Kathleen Ruff: How one single-minded activist helped turn the tide on asbestos (Michelle Lalonde, (Montreal Gazette, 4 June 2016).

“Kathleen Ruff is the true hero of this whole saga,” said Dr. Fernand Turcotte, one of Ruff’s longtime collaborators on the asbestos file and a professor emeritus of public health and preventive medicine at the Université Laval.

“She is generous, principled, committed and just unstoppable,” said Steven Staples, vice president of the Ottawa-based foreign and defence policy think tank, the Rideau Institute.

For the full article, click: Kathleen Ruff: How one single-minded activist helped turn the tide on asbestos (Michelle Lalonde, (Montreal Gazette, 4 June 2016).

For more information on Kathleen Ruff’s brilliant and indefatigable human rights advocacy, go to her website:  RightonCanada.ca.

 

Photo credit: Rideau Institute

 

Tags: asbesto ban, asbestos, Chrysotile Institute, Dr. Fernand Turcotte, Kathleen Ruff, mesothelioma, Montreal Gazette, Peggy Mason, Quebec National Assembly, Quebec National Institute for Public Health, Rideau Institute, RightonCanada.ca, Rotterdam Convention, Steven Staples, The Jeffrey Mine, World Health Organization