Mr. Speaker, I just have to point out the Westray mine in Pictou, Nova Scotia. It was in the Stellarton, New Glasgow area. It showed what happens when we do not have proper regulations in the coal mining industry. Unfortunately, a lot of people lost their lives in that explosion. After the inquiry, it was very clear that the safety regulations were extremely relaxed. They were not followed at all.
This is what happens when there is no independent oversight or proper, thorough, thoughtful regulation to protect workers, and not just workers but management as well, who were working in those very unforgiving and dangerous climates.
The Westray mine was a classic example of how it can be screwed up. The reality is that it was simply avoidable. It did not have to happen. When there are companies that do not think about the workers' safety or their families, this is what happens. We do not want to go back to that history again.
I am hoping that these regulations that come forward in Bill C-5 go through a careful peer review by the committee once we bring in the witnesses, Mr. Wells, the provinces, and everybody else to ensure that we get it right. It is critical to get it right.
As I said earlier, my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst knows exactly what it is like to work in a mine. They are not the safest conditions in the world. My colleague from Timmins—James Bay knows exactly what it is like up in Kirkland Lake for the men and women who work as hardrock miners. The same kinds of hard work and dangerous situations exist in a different format out on the oceans. We had the Ocean Ranger. We had the incident of the helicopter going down. Both cases were very unfortunate.
As Parliament, not just as a government, we have a duty to those workers and their families to ensure that we get it right so that nobody else has to lose a life in the dangerous situations in the economy and in the work they do out on the east coast of Canada.