Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Westray mine disaster in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, where 26 coal miners lost their lives in one of Canada's worst mining disasters. Our hearts go out to all the families and friends of the miners who lost their lives.
We also honour the entire community that mobilized to assist in a search and rescue following the explosion, especially the search and rescue teams and those brave draegermen. Justice Peter Richard of the Westray inquiry described Westray as “a story of incompetence, of mismanagement, of bureaucratic bungling, of deceit, of ruthlessness, of cover-up, of apathy, of expediency, and of cynical indifference”.
Former NDP leader Alexa McDonough kept her promise to the Westray families by pushing for changes to the Criminal Code. She laid the groundwork for the 2004 Westray bill that holds corporate managers and employers criminally responsible for endangering the lives of workers.
As our brothers and sisters of the United Steelworkers remind us, we must enforce the law to ensure that another Westray never happens again.
May God bless the memory of those 26 miners.