In my past, Mr. Speaker, I was a police reporter and I covered a lot of accidents that occurred in the industrial world. The most common cause of accidents that I covered as a reporter, and these were fatalities, were those that occurred in small businesses. It could be a bake shop where someone gets caught in the dough making machine. In fact, that actually happened.
The majority of industrial accidents that led to fatalities in my experience involved small businesses and small corporations. One of the reasons for this is that small enterprises--whether they be fishermen on the east coast or farmers, another good category--hire temporary workers. Lamentably, there is a tendency in these small businesses to ignore the rules or be ignorant of the rules. This often leads to innocent people being killed. Indeed, a very unfortunate accident happened like this very near to home with me in which a young man was killed. In fact, it was United Co-operatives, a farm co-op, where the young man was killed.
The difficulty with the legislation that has come to the House at various times as private members' legislation is that if we were to apply it to large corporations, like the Westray instance, that in fairness we would have to apply it to all corporations and all small businesses. I think this would be very difficult. If we were to pass that legislation in that form I think the sad thing would be that many thousands of small entrepreneurs would be driven out of business or alternatively would be sent to jail because that is what was proposed in those private members' bills.
I am very sympathetic to those who lost lives in the Westray mine disaster. There is no doubt that there was incompetence and improprieties that occurred at the time. However, to take that instant and try to apply it across all of Canada and all businesses from large to small, I think is something that may save some lives, a few lives perhaps, not many perhaps, but it could cause a lot of harm and damage to the many small entrepreneurs who do, I am sorry to say, take short cuts. While we lament that they do, I am not sure that we want to pay the cost that is proposed by the private member's legislation that was discussed here.