Michel Bellehumeur

[Division No. 1072, March 13th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order. It is now 11.45 p.m. and, should you ask the House, I am sure you would find unanimous consent to thank the pages who did an excellent job during these long hours. I know some of them will be leaving at midnight, namely Rachelle, Natalie, Greg, Adrienne, Sonja, Cheryl, Mélanie, Eric, Meg and David.

I think we should give them a good round of applause and thank them for their excellent work.

[Division No. 1047, March 13th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order. You are perhaps in a hurry to get home to bed, but I would like you to read the motions more slowly.

Earlier, for Motion No. 270, you mentioned clauses 1 and 30, when it was a case of clauses 1 and 3. We voted on that. I would have liked to intervene—

[Westray Mine, March 13th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I wish to congratulate the hon. member sponsoring this motion for his tenacity, since I recall this motion being discussed in a previous session. He has now been faithful to himself and introduced it again, in light of the seriousness of the issue it raises.

A mine explosion in Nova Scotia raised the question of whether the legislation was or was not equal to the task of properly handling a similar situation. The government of the province mandated Justice Peter Richard to carry out a public inquiry in order to cast light on all of the circumstances surrounding this tragedy.

An extremely sizeable report, released in November 1997, provided a chronology of all of the events and a highly detailed analysis of the legislation. The judge primarily addressed provincial labour law, however, in keeping with the Nova Scotia ministerial order.

Hon. members will realize we will set aside that part of the report that addresses provincial legislation, because this is the federal level and we do not want to do what the federal government is generating complaints for doing, namely meddling in jurisdictions which are not ours.

The judge did make some comments on the Criminal Code and call for certain things. We should perhaps act on his observations in view of what he asked and show how seriously we take the report.

I repeat this, because I think it important: we support the motion of the Conservative member, but we would like it to be examined in the light of federal legislation. In order for this to occur, the motion has to be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for consideration.

With what I heard today, members will understand, there is nothing much left for me to say, except to move an amendment to Motion M-79.

I move:

That the motion be amended by adding the following between the words “amended” and “in accordance”: “following study by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights”.

Once this study is complete, federal legislation may be really focused accordingly and in appropriate response to the judge in the matter.

I will quote what the judge said in this regard and more precisely recommendation 73 of the report, which the Conservative member's motion refers to. Recommendation 73 of the Richard report reads as follows:

The Government of Canada, through the Department of Justice, should institute a study of the accountability of corporate executives and directors for the wrongful or negligent acts of the corporation and should introduce in the Parliament of Canada such amendments to legislation as are necessary to ensure that corporate executives and directors are held properly accountable for workplace safety.

This recommendation gives us the opening I mentioned earlier to intervene in this matter and especially to do a detailed study of all aspects of mining safety. I therefore move this amendment.

[Division No. 1129, March 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think you will find unanimous consent for what I am now proposing.

As the pages have been doing an excellent job—since midnight we have a new group—I think the House should thank them for a job well done.

I am going to name them, something that we rarely do—

[Division No. 800, March 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If you had been a bit more quick to act and had given me the time to vote, I would have supported this amendment.

[Division No. 794, March 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in order to enlighten this House I raise a point of order. I ask you whether a colleague in this House wearing a turtle neck is entitled to vote.

[Division No. 794, March 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I think it would be a good idea for you to enlighten the House at this time. I have heard a number of Liberal members wondering whether one of our colleagues wearing a turtle neck is entitled to vote.

I tell them he is entitled to vote, but they stubbornly insist—

[Points Of Order, February 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, further to the tabling by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs of a bill denying the basic rights of Quebecers, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to table a document that could enlighten the House.

It is an article that was published in Le Devoir on January 27, under the title “Ontario after a yes vote”.

[Request For Emergency Debate, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to question the ruling you just made regarding the request for an emergency debate, but I have read Standing Order 52 and, given the extremely high cost of gasoline and its very significant impact on all Quebecers and Canadians, I absolutely cannot understand why, at this point, you would refuse to hold an emergency debate, in light of the importance of this issue from an economic point of view.

If you were to decide—

[Point Of Order, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I think that some things were overlooked, but now this is a bit much. Seriously, in the case of the member for Rosemont, he asked for consent and you immediately asked the question.

The member belongs to my party but I do not even know what document he wanted to table. I suppose that the Liberal members who said no do not know either what document they were asked about.

I would like you to give him a chance—