Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening to speak to private member's Bill C-284 that was put forward by my colleague from Churchill. I commend her for her effort in bringing it forward.
I will read from the summary of the bill so that people clearly understand, although if they have been watching the debate it has been very instructive thus far and some good points have been brought forward. The summary of Bill C-284 clearly states:
The purpose of this enactment is to provide that, where a member of the staff of a corporation commits an offence by an act or omission on behalf of the corporation, the corporation, its directors and officers may, in certain circumstances also be guilty of the offence.
As has been stated and as all speakers have pointed out, the legislation came about because of the horrific Westray mine accident of May 9, 1992 in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, which killed 26 men. As the hon. parliamentary secretary pointed out, May 9, 1992 was almost a decade ago. Yet we are still here debating what ultimately to do about it.
The parliamentary secretary talked about difficulties in proposing this type of legislation in that one must prove intent on the part of the corporation and/or its directors. I would respond that in some cases it does not matter whether the intent is there; the bottom line is that the people are still dead.
The reality of criminal law is that in cases of first degree murder one needs to prove there was intent to commit murder but for manslaughter one does not. People charged with manslaughter can be held accountable even if they did not clearly intend to murder an individual. They should have assumed that because of their actions the individual stood a good chance of perishing.
How can these accidents happen in this day and age? That question is certainly on the minds of men and women in workplaces across our nation. It seems incomprehensible that these types of things can happen in this day and age. We have provincial workers' compensation boards across the nation to protect our workers.
Sadly the reality is that all too often workers are intimidated into doing things they know are unsafe. They feel intimidated and at risk of losing their jobs, especially in times of economic slowdown. They cannot afford the loss of income and end up doing things in the workplace they inherently know are not smart. Unfortunately I speak in particular of our youth.
I am a father of three. My children's ages are 22, 20 and 18. I am sure many members in the House have children in the workplace or in some cases grandchildren. All too often it is the young people of Canada who do not clearly understand their rights as workers and can be coerced or intimidated into doing something unsafe. They do so in the name of expediency and the bottom line so that a corporation can chase the almighty dollar.
This is especially important in a country such as Canada where a large part of our economy is dependent upon natural resource extraction, be it from mines, the oil patch, logging or fishing. I should not say these industries have a record of being unsafe, but many are dangerous to be involved in. Many of them involve heavy equipment. Miners must work underground. Forestry workers have large trees falling around them. Statistics clearly show these are dangerous occupations and we must ensure corporations conduct these operations in the safest way possible.
I have listened to the arguments and read the bill. There are concerns that the legislation as written is perhaps too punitive. However, with all due respect, a decade is long enough for the families of the victims of the Westray disaster to have waited to see the issue go before a committee.
In the last parliament, as has been mentioned tonight, my colleague from Pictou--Antigonish-Guysborough was successful in getting a private member's motion dealing with this issue passed and sent to the justice committee. However one of the tragedies, as it were, of our parliamentary system and how it handles private members' legislation is that even when it clears the first hurdle and enough government backbenchers break party ranks to support it and send it to the appropriate committee, all too often an election ends up being called and the legislation dies.
That is what happened with my colleague's bill, which necessitated my other colleague from Churchill bringing it forward and starting the process all over again. Here we are still dealing with it a decade later.
In conclusion, I support the initiative. As others have said, there are problems with the way it is drafted but I am sure it is nothing the justice committee could not deal with. It could hear the appropriate witnesses and make amendments, but let us get on with it.