Mr. Speaker, absolutely a large part of the Canadian workforce does not have the protection of a union. Its protection comes from municipal, provincial and federal statutes and laws.
It is so very important for the government, after 12 years of dithering and if it does anything today when it sees our flags at half-mast, to announce in the House or in committee that it will now bring forward legislation which enacts exactly for what we have been asking.
Organizations such as the steelworkers, the Canadian Labour Congress and many others have been asking for very strict deterrent legislation to ensure that when corporations knowingly put the lives of workers at risk or endanger them to impairment of physical or mental concerns that they themselves will be held liable for the actions that they have caused.
I thank the member for Halifax who has raised this issue continuously as a provincial member of the legislature as well as a federal member of Parliament.