Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to share the time with my colleague from Bras d'Or—Cape Breton. I do not have the direct ties to coal mining in my immediate family as does the hon. member who just preceded me and that is why she speaks about the issue so eloquently and so passionately.
Let me say very briefly why I was prompted, and I guess I would say provoked, to enter the debate that is before the House at this time. There are really three things that provoked me to do that. One was recognizing and watching the government invoke closure yet again, I think for the 65th time in this session if I am not mistaken, outdoing the Mulroney government's record for heavy handedness and disregard for the importance of dealing with an issue like this in a thorough and comprehensive way. What a legacy for the current federal Liberal government.
Second, I have been listening and watching members across the way, most recently the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development, talk about the lives and livelihoods of Cape Bretoners, in particular the miners and their families, as if they are a commodity, a commodity to be disposed of, to be traded away. The focus of attention has been so much on the notion of transferring assets, completing sales, finishing deals and finding buyers. If there were ever an eloquent reason for referring this legislation as the subamendment before us proposes to the human resources committee, it is that. We are talking about the future of a generation of people and the next generation coming from behind them.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development said “Well, I believe that Cape Bretoners are capable of adjusting to change”. You are darn right they are capable of adjusting to change, but we are talking about human lives being lived in a community and what the economy of that community is going to look like. This government does not even have the sensitivity or the decency to understand why issues as complex and as sensitive as this should be brought before the human resources committee.
This brings me to the third reason why I was provoked to enter this debate at this time. On Friday I was in Windsor, Ontario. I was participating in a forum, a teach-in really, around the upcoming meetings of the OAS that are going to take place in Windsor. One of the speakers at that forum was the president of the mine workers from Columbia. That trade unionist who risks his life to come and talk with us in Canada about what is happening to coal mining, not just in his own back yard, not just in his country, but around the world, used the issue of Devco and the government's handling of Devco as one of the most dramatic examples of what is wrong with the corporatization of our economy both locally and internationally.
What he described is absolutely true. While this government presides over the elimination of large numbers of jobs in the coal industry and puts at further risk the opportunity for future work in the coal mines by saying “Well, the private sector will do it just as Westray, the families of the survivors of Westray, did about the privatization of coal mines.
What this trade union leader from Columbia talked about is while the federal Liberal government knowingly puts the jobs and the futures of those coal miners of Cape Breton at risk, what it does is drive the race to the bottom and turn around and import the coal from Columbia, one of the worst countries in the world with regard to labour standards, working conditions and human rights.
I want to end by pleading with the federal Liberal government to understand the simple concept of treating the lives of Cape Bretoners and the future of those miners and their families, and others who are dependent upon the mining industry as a human issue to be considered by the human resources committee, not as a commodity, not just something to be traded away.
Our human resources are going to be the future of Cape Breton. It is high time the government understood that treating people with dignity recognizing that they are indeed a human resource is going to be the key to a prosperous and stable economy in Canada based on human rights and decent labour standards.
Let us refer this issue to the human resources committee.