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Asbestos Strike of 1949 (Plain-Language Summary)
Asbestos is a mineral. It has many uses. For instance, it can be used for insulation, furnaces and brake pads. Quebec produced the most asbestos in the world by 1949, 85 per cent. In February 1949, thousands of miners in a town called Asbestos as well as Thetford Mines went on strike (see Val-des-Sources (Asbestos)). The government in Quebec was against the workers. It sided with the main employer, the American-owned Johns-Manville Company. The Catholic Church was for the workers (see Catholicism in Canada). This made the government and the Church clash. The strike is famous for two main reasons. First, it was violent. Second, it contributed to the creation of the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s. The Quiet Revolution was a time when francophones assumed more leadership positions in Quebec. This article is a plain-language summary of the Asbestos Strike of 1949. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry, Asbestos Strike of 1949.