Mr. Speaker, I have questions I would like to pose to the proponent of the bill. One point is that the bill could have quite easily addressed the issue of safety concerns for pregnant mothers, their fetuses or their unborn children across the nation, from province to province, but this specific legislation talks about having the employee avail herself of the legislation in the province where she works, which is something very different from the present. Nowhere in the balance of the provinces of Canada is this particular compensation paid.
I think the objective of the bill is good and the principle behind it is fair and is worthy of debate, but if it were to pass we would find that it would be applicable with respect to a particular province only; it would distinguish between mothers and fetuses and babies across the other provinces. More important, it would make every provincial law that is passed hereafter in any province a matter of federal jurisdiction under the Canada Labour Code, without any review by this House or by anyone who is a member of Parliament. The provinces would be dictating what is happening in the Canada Labour Code with respect to federal undertakings.
If the proponent had the issue of the safety of mothers in mind, why was the bill not designed specifically to deal with that issue, not federal-provincial jurisdiction?