Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We have within this section exemptions of information that we've just spoken about.
How the proposed legislation reads currently is:
(2) Information disclosed under a process referred to in subsection (1)
--in other words, the SMS process--
may not be used in the taking of any measure, or in any proceedings, against the document holder or the employee who disclosed it for a contravention of this Act or of an instrument made under this Act.
Amendment NDP-9 simply takes out “the document holder”. So it would continue to protect the employee, and we certainly heard some consistency from witnesses about protecting the employee. I think there was broad agreement on that. We have to have some protection for the employee so that in these incidents, which lead to accidents, as Justice Moshansky said so clearly, the person is protected.
I do not believe the document holder should get what is essentially a get-out-of-jail-free card and that the document holder should have that same ability, essentially, to be protected.
What I hope would happen, Mr. Chair, if we adopt this amendment is that the government might then choose to bring back amendments next Monday that revise the status of the document holder. That's fair game. They may choose to do that. But very clearly, we cannot have the get-out-of-jail protection we have for employees extended to the document holders themselves. It doesn't make sense. It certainly puts all of us in a precarious position, as parliamentarians, to give this exemption from their responsibility, because essentially what that means is that if the process is respected, as we've already seen, the measures taken are fairly long and arduous. And we saw with rail safety that that kind of situation isn't in the interests of the Canadian public.
The amendment endeavours to take “the document holder” out. The government could then choose to move another amendment on Monday. I'm sure they would have time over the next few days to do that. But we have to have some protection so that when companies go bad, as they sometimes do--and we've certainly heard testimony to that effect--they don't get a get-out-of-jail-free card.