Mr. Speaker, yes, I do remember that tragic incident in 1999. As the member said, no one was charged.
I was there in the legislature in 1992 when 26 miners died as a result of the explosion underground in the Westray tragedy. I was the labour critic in the NDP caucus in those days, and I sat down literally hours after that disaster with families in Stellarton and heard the stories and felt the grief. I sat through days, weeks, months, and years of investigations, of reviews, of debate, and we never did, as far as I was concerned, the legislation that we require to properly hold officials accountable for enforcing health and safety laws. There are the three Rs, in terms of the responsibility that both the employer and the employees have to have, but we were never able to hold the proper authorities accountable in that case.
It was the same thing in the case of the Nordic Apollo.
We have always said that government should have a dedicated prosecutor for health and safety. We need to make sure the legislation holds people accountable so that they will be charged.
There was a Westray bill that passed in the House, which dealt with corporate responsibility. It was sponsored by my friend and colleague, the former leader of the NDP in the House, Alexa McDonough, and that is a start; but still nobody has been charged under that legislation. It takes commitment by government to make sure people are held accountable.