Debates of April 23rd, 1999

Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-78, an act to establish the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, to amend the Public Service Superannuation Act, the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, the Defence Services Pension Continuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pension Continuation Act, the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act and the Canada Post Corporation Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Workplace Safety

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Motion No. 455. The potential exists in terms of corporate responsibility.

One of the most dramatic examples of negligence on the part of corporate Canada was the 1992 Westray explosion which killed 26 miners. It was a disaster that did not need to happen, but it did. My hon. colleague from the Conservative Party should be commended for putting this motion forward.

Motion No. 455 deals with some very hard questions. It states very clearly that corporate executives cannot hide behind their titles when they engage in behaviour that has proven to be negligent or harmful to the people working under them.

We must also ensure that Motion No. 455 is not used as a cudgel to slam on the head of the executive world when it is not negligent and not responsible. In other words, we cannot use it as an action to make the corporate world responsible for things when it is not. We want to ensure that individuals, inside and outside corporate Canada, are dealt with equally and fairly under the law. Executives will not be able to hide behind their job titles in the commission of their duties.

We are also looking at a larger paradigm shift. We should look at the issue of corporate responsibility and the opportunities that exist. Historically, we have not examined the enormous opportunities the corporate world has for social good.

Some companies have done an incredible job, such as Ben & Jerry's in the United States. It is a great giver and has an enormous amount of social concern and responsibility. Through its company, it has managed to improve the health and welfare of those people who are less privileged than most of us. There are many examples of companies in Canada that have used their powers as corporations to help individuals in our country.

Corporate Canada has two roles: to make a profit, which is extremely important, and to provide jobs and such that makes our country run. Profit is a good thing but a balance has to be struck between making a profit and the cost that is sometimes incurred by the behaviour of those companies.

We have not looked at the balance between making a profit and ensuring that a company is ethical and is not engaging in activities which could hurt the collective good and the people. We must have a balance between making a profit and the actions of the company and the costs.

Southwest Airlines in the United States is thriving and making a huge profit, but it is also very socially responsible. It treats its employees fairly and does an incredible social job within its region. This company has managed to strike the balance between profit making and corporate responsibility.

Rather than sacrificing profits, Southwest Airlines is one of the healthiest airlines in the United States. It is healthy because it managed to marry corporate responsibility with profit and managed to ensure that its employees bought into this exciting paradigm shift.

Profit sharing on the part of the employees and the owners is a very good thing. It actually ensures that their employees will derive benefits from their actions. This tends to make employees work harder and more effectively, which would benefit the company.

This change or paradigm shift in our thinking of corporate responsibility does need to be applied just to the private sector. It can be applied to government. Why not have public service employees deriving financial benefits from doing their jobs. If a department was able to meet or cut its budget then a percentage of that could be shared by the employees of that department. Right now we do not have that.

Today, when a government department sees it is going to have a surplus at the end of the year, it tries to spend the surplus so it will not have its budget cut in the next year. Why not give a percentage of that savings to the people who have, through their actions of wise spending and through their responsible actions as employees, managed to save money for the taxpayer. The taxpayer would still derive the benefit because their money would not have been wasted. The people who made sure that they spent wisely would also derive a financial benefit. It is a win-win situation. It would also ensure that the public sector would be working more effectively, which we would all applaud.

The issue of corporate responsibility can also be applied to the actions of corporations internationally. Actions by corporations have destroyed environments and decimated social structures abroad. We mentioned the issue of the Sydney tar ponds where actions by companies clearly poisoned the surrounding environment. We cannot allow this to happen.

Motion No. 455 brings up a very exciting point about making those people who engage in that type of behaviour responsible. It also provides a window for the other side of the coin which is to use the private sector for the public good. The beauty of Motion No. 455 is that it deals with both sides.

The explicit part of Motion No. 455 is a punitive one which must be done and should be looked at least. We believe in studying this to ensure that companies cannot compromise the health and welfare of their employees and other people. Also there lies an opportunity to do public good.

Some companies that work abroad work in very impoverished lands. We must also consider those companies that work in impoverished lands or in countries where a despot is abusing the people, such as what occurred in Nigeria in the past. Canadian companies working in those areas should have an obligation to invest part of their profits into social programs for the people, basic programs such as health and education. Companies must also ensure that their employees are paid fairly, not on a Canadian wage basis, but in terms of the country in which they are operating.

That is a very powerful thing for the surrounding people in that country. Canadian companies working abroad can be used as a powerful tool for ensuring social stability and improving the social structures within countries which in many cases are some of the most impoverished lands in the world.

I have to wrap up so I will summarize by saying that Motion No. 455 has some excellent points. I commend the member from the Conservative Party for putting it forward. We need to study this to ensure that those in corporate Canada do not hide behind their titles and abuse the people. The other side is to use this as a window for corporate Canada to engage in public good not only within our country but also abroad.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the first hour of debate on Motion M-455, moved by the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, which reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Criminal Code or other appropriate federal statutes should be amended in accordance with Recommendation 73 of the Province of Nova Scotia's Public Inquiry into the Westray disaster, specifically with the goal of ensuring that corporate executives and directors are held properly accountable for workplace safety.

Let us first look at the facts surrounding the Westray mine tragedy and all the proceedings that led to the commission's report.

On May 9, 1992, an explosion occurred at the Westray mine, killing 26 workers. On May 15 of that same year, the Government of Nova Scotia appointed Mr. Justice Peter Richard to head a commission of inquiry established under the Public Inquiries Act. Mr. Justice Richard was also appointed special investigator under the Coal Mining Regulation Act.

The commission had a very broad mandate, so as to shed light on the explosion and all the related circumstances. In fact, Nova Scotia's premier at the time, Donald Cameron, was very clear about that mandate:

Mr. Justice Richard's inquiry will not be limited to the events of the early morning of May 9. Nothing and no person with any light to shed on this tragedy will escape the scrutiny of this inquiry.

The commission's work thus began immediately, to prepare for the public hearings set to begin on October 19, 1992.

Curragh Resources Inc. and Westray's management challenged the validity of the order in council establishing the commission of inquiry, and this, as members can imagine, led to numerous legal proceedings. Because of these delays, the Richard report was tabled only five years later, in November 1997.

The report, entitled “The Westray Story: A Predictable Path to Disaster”, contains 74 recommendations. It concluded in general that this tragedy could have been avoided if minimal occupational safety standards had been met.

As we know, the employers' obligations in terms of occupational health and safety fall under provincial jurisdiction. So, before determining if the employers were negligent or made a mistake, it is important to find out what their obligations are pursuant to the relevant legislation.

In Nova Scotia, mining is regulated by three pieces of legislation, the Mineral Resources Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Coal Mines Regulation Act. Mr. Justice Richard reviewed all of these provincial acts and concluded that their main purpose was to ensure the safety of the workers.

Unfortunately, we have seen many examples of occupational safety in the workplace taking second place behind the bottom line, especially in the mining industry, where the very nature of the work involves a lot of risk. So, it is the duty of company officers to ensure that the work is done in the safest possible conditions. We need only think of the tragedy that occurred in the 1980s at the Balmoral gold mine in Abiliti, killing eight workers.

Frédéric Le Play, a 19th century French sociologist, wrote “The most important thing that should come out of a mine is the miner himself”. Mr. Justice Richard therefore concluded that Nova Scotia should revise its legislation on occupational health and safety in order to make coal mining safer.

Our main concern today is recommendation 73 of the report. It is addressed to the federal government and deals with Criminal Code amendments on the responsibility of directors for safety in the workplace.

The commissioner made this recommendation because of the criminal proceedings undertaken while Mr. Justice Richard's public inquiry was underway. On April 20, 1993, the RCMP announced that charges were being laid against Curragh Resources Inc., as well as Gerald Phillips and Roger Parry, two members of the mine's management. !gerald sur le net They were charged with criminal negligence and homicide under sections 220 and 222(5) of the Criminal Code.

Since the court found that those charges were too vague for the accused to be able to put up an appropriate defence, other charges were laid, based on infractions under provincial laws on occupational safety.

This is why Mr. Justice Richard made recommendation 73. If we are to understand clearly the meaning of the motion before the House, we should first have a look at recommendation 73 of the Westray mine public inquiry:

The Government of Canada, through the Department of Justice, should institute a study of the accountability of corporate executives and directors for the wrongful or negligent acts of the corporation and should introduce in the Parliament of Canada such amendments to legislation as are necessary to ensure that corporate executives and directors are held properly accountable for workplace safety.

The current effectiveness of the provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with the accountability of corporate executives with regard to workplace safety is of concern to us. This is why we believe this issue should be looked at from a general perspective and not solely within the context of the Westray mine. In our view, criminal proceedings against Westray mine officers, which have proved fruitless so far, were affected by the climate created by the public enquiry. Therefore, the study should ensure that the provisions of the Criminal Code complement the provisions in the various provincial statutes dealing with workplace safety.

We support the member's motion. An in-depth and thorough review of the issue must take place before any legislative changes are introduced. Recommendation 73 clearly proposes that a study take place prior to making any such changes. We believe, and I hope my colleague who is sponsoring this motion will agree with me, it would be more appropriate for the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to undertake this study.

This is why I am proposing the following amendment:

That the motion be amended by adding after the word “amended” the following: “, following a study by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights,”

In our opinion this amendment clarifies the motion and is in keeping with recommendation 73. With this amendment, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights would be charged with carrying out the study referred to in recommendation 73 by the commission of inquiry. We could then have clear reason to amend the Criminal Code.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

In my opinion the amendment is in order.

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to address the motion of my colleague from Nova Scotia, the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. It is also my pleasure to indicate that he will have, as he knows, my support on the motion. He will have the support of our party as well.

His motion calls for the government to act upon recommendation No. 73 of the public inquiry of the province of Nova Scotia into the Westray disaster and to amend the Criminal Code accordingly. It mirrors very much a bill that was introduced by the leader of our party in relation to the Westray disaster in January 1999. Our bill details the specific changes to the Criminal Code required to address the concerns of corporate liability and workplace safety as indicated in the Westray report.

I began by saying the hon. member knows he will have my support. I come from the same province. I come from a coal mining community. I remember well the Westray disaster because that day I was not in Nova Scotia. My wife and I had taken some time and were outside the province. When we called home and spoke to the caregiver who was looking after our children we did not talk about the weather. We did not talk a whole lot. The first thing we were apprised of was the situation in Westray.

It is perhaps difficult for those who do not live in mining communities to understand the impact of that news. Coming from Cape Breton we knew that it would be our friends and colleagues who would volunteer to go into those mines to find the bodies of the 26 coal miners who were killed, and they did.

For those who live in communities where there are coal mines, for those who live in industrial communities, it is difficult to describe how ingrained and how we know that disaster lurks around the corner. When a whistle blows, when there is the sound of an explosion from the blast furnace, when we look at the changing colour of the sky and the fishermen are out on the water, we know that there will be disaster.

We live with that reality every day. The miners in Stellarton live with that. The miners in Sydney mines and New Waterford live with that and the fishermen live with that. It colours the way we react. There is some romance around that but it leads to certain harsh realities. It leads to some good realities. It leads to the way we share things. It leads to a sense of community. It leads to a sense of humour that is mirrored in the works of our poets and artists and in the songs of our musicians.

We live with the frustrating knowledge that corporations which exploit workers in areas of high unemployment in dangerous settings literally get away with murder. It is that reality which the motion and the New Democratic Party's bill seek to address.

I say this having listened to the speaker on the government side. I will not dwell on it, but one of the real concerns we have as the government dismantles the Cape Breton Development Corporation is that it will move to a private mine without a union under provincial jurisdiction, without the protections we now have, which were the very circumstances that led to the disaster at Westray. I urge the government to bear that in mind.

There are ways to prevent this. One way is to accept the motion and the New Democratic Party's bill. I will read from the wording of Justice Richard in the Westray report:

The Westray Story is a complex mosaic of actions, omissions, mistakes, incompetence, apathy, cynicism, stupidity, neglect—Viewed in context, these seemingly isolated incidents constitute a mindset or operating philosophy that appears to favour expediency over intelligent planning and that trivializes safety concerns. Indeed, management at Westray displayed a certain disdain for safety and appeared to regard safety conscious workers as the wimps in the organization. To its discredit, the management at Westray, through either incompetence or ignorance, lost sight of the basic tenet of coal mining that safe mining is good business.

The tale that unfolds in the Westray report is a story of incompetence, of mismanagement, of bureaucratic bungling, of deceit, of ruthlessness, of cover-up, of apathy, of expediency and of cynical indifference. It is a tragic story with the inevitable moments of pathos and heroism. The Westray story concerns an event that in all good common sense ought not to have occurred. It did occur and that is our unfortunate legacy. It is in fact our unfortunate tragedy.

There are ways to stop this. There are ways to stop criminal murder by corporations of their workers. That is what our bill will seek to address and that is what the motion seeks to address. There are ways it can be done by amending the Criminal Code.

In that report Justice Richard pointed out those ways. He suggested that there be a new criminal offence that would impose criminal liability on directors or others responsible for failing to ensure their corporation maintains an appropriate standard of occupational health and safety in the workplace, a criminal offence of corporate killing.

Justice Richard said “in the context of Westray these deserve consideration”. They deserve more than consideration; they demand action. Recommendation No. 73 states that the Government of Canada through the Department of Justice should institute a study of the accountability of corporate executives and directors for the wrongful or negligent acts of corporations and should introduce in the Parliament of Canada such amendments to legislation as are necessary to ensure that corporate executives and directors are held accountable for workplace study.

The only disagreement I have with this is the call for more study. We do not need more study. We need legislation. That is why we intend to introduce a bill complementing the motion of my colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough which will amend the Criminal Code to make this law.

This is not the first time it has been raised. I quote from the Law Reform Commission of Canada back in 1976 which stated: “While the goals of many of our corporations, profit and growth, spur important advances in the technologies of production and—”

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I am afraid that the time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

The hon. member will have about three minutes left the next time this is brought back to the House.

It being 1.15 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 1.15 p.m.)