Mr. Speaker, given your ruling, which I respect, I might add a small aside.
I was in favour of the idea of having a monument, which is the idea behind the motion presented by the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster. Nonetheless, as far as the amendment presented by the hon. member for Ottawa Centre is concerned, I have some serious questions. I find this a bit unfortunate.
This amendment raises the question of compensation. Such a motion was presented on the foundation that I work with every day and that is not necessarily in favour of the amount mentioned. That is the first point.
I have some difficulty rising in this House to speak to this amendment. I had some discussion with foundation representatives. They had asked for something else. They still were not certain what form this should take.
Furthermore, there is the entire judicial matter. I would suggest that my colleagues in this House give this some serious thought. What type of compensation are we talking about? From what I understand from this amendment, we are talking about compensation for a firefighter who dies on the job. To use the expression in the amendment, we might also be talking about a firefighter who is permanently handicapped.
Given my experience in labour relations, that brings workplace accidents to mind. Those things are already covered in our provincial and territorial jurisdictions.
I think that the amendment is much more important than we may realize. I have serious reservations concerning the proposed amendment, and it saddens me.
I am talking to those Canadians who are watching us and, above all, to all those who showed up on Parliament Hill on September 11, for the commemorative ceremony honouring those who have fallen in combat. We wanted to give even more visibility to those people going through difficult times. I think about people working on this foundation, giving their hearts and souls to it.
Some colleagues in this House might have wanted to support this motion. Unfortunately, they will not be able to do so any more. Indeed, in my opinion, rules were broken in a blatant way. Therefore, we will not have had an opportunity to debate the amendment. I feel the context in which that was done and the way it occurred are sad. One must truly look at the ins and outs of the amendment on compensation which, I feel, does not concern the federal government, bur rather the provincial and territorial levels.
I think we are opening up Pandora's box, and we should not do that. Given the circumstances and the people we are trying to honour, we could have taken a little bit more time to think about it. It is unfortunate that things are happening this way.
I have to admit that I was supporting this project, the construction of this memorial, ostensibly on Le Breton Flats. We had made plans to that effect in conjunction with the NCC. We were ready to go ahead with this. It is an unfortunate amendment. However, this will not prevent us from continuing our work toward the erection of this monument.
As I have said to husband and wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters of fallen firefighters who were on the Hill on September 11, next year we will make sure that even more people gather to honour the extremely dangerous work done by all firefighters in Canada.
I support, in principle, having a monument built and trying to find a way to honour these people. However, I am not ready to accept this $300,000 benefit that is not anywhere near what the Foundation itself has asked for. They come here in the House and they say that this is what the Foundation is asking for. I find that the Foundation can bear quite a lot.
I am running out of time. It is unfortunate because I had prepared such a positive speech in favour of the motion. However, in the last five or ten minutes, the whole context has changed and I cannot support this motion anymore.
This is all I had to say. I find this situation quite unfortunate given all the work that has already been done on this.