Mr. Speaker, having heard the hon. member from the government say that it is not interested in supporting this recommendation is disappointing. It has thrown me off my remarks. I really thought there would be broad interest and support for such a good motion and for the type of language that was put together.
I can tell members that Canadians were absolutely horrified when 26 miners were killed at the Westray mine, but they were even more horrified when they discovered that the crown prosecutor for Nova Scotia had to stay the charges because, under the current criminal code of Canada, in spite of overwhelming evidence of gross negligence, he could not make those charges stick. That is what Canadians were seriously horrified about.
That is what led to Judge Richard making recommendations in the Westray report. Recommendation 73 specifically called for the criminal code and other legislation to be amended to introduce the concept of corporate manslaughter or corporate murder. Now corporations can be charged with a violation of the Canada Labour Code if workers' lives are put at risk through gross negligence, but they cannot be charged with manslaughter or murder because the current criminal code does not contemplate that. That is what recommendation 73 called for. That is what the motion from the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough calls for. That is what the private member's bill introduced by our leader, the member for Halifax, called for in a very specific way.
We would be able to criminally charge company owners, CEOs, members of boards of directors of any enterprise who knowingly risk workers' lives in the same way that we would be able to charge someone with criminal negligence who drank a full bottle of whiskey and then drove a car and killed somebody. That person could be charged under the Motor Vehicles Act, but also under the criminal code because a person's life was put at risk through criminal negligence. The same should apply to workplaces. Nobody should be injured, butchered or maimed on behalf of some arbitrary production schedule. Canadians have matured far beyond that point.
We still have startling statistics though. Three Canadian workers a day are killed at work. One thousand Canadians a year are killed on the job and hundreds of thousands of others suffer lost time due to injuries.
We have looked at the moral and ethical reasons why we have to stop this. Let us now look at the financial reasons.
Every year in my home province of Manitoba 50,000 person days are lost due to strikes and lockouts, and the right wing of the chamber of commerce screams bloody murder that unions are causing a lack of productivity. In the same period of time, 500,000 person days are lost due to injuries, accidents, lost time, sickness due to injury, et cetera. If we are serious about productivity, if we are serious about workers or profits due to productivity, the first place to clean up is the workplace.
There are all kinds of good reasons why this particular motion should get unanimous support from the House. Under the guidance of the motion we would go on to pass the private member's bill dealing with Westray, get it into the criminal code and amend part II of the Canada Labour Code. No one should be injured, butchered or maimed on behalf of an arbitrary production schedule in this country.