 Okay, so to begin, can you please state your full name? My name is Paul Harold Macklin. And your age, please. My age is 71. And where were you born? I was born in Coburg, Ontario. Where we are at the moment. And what did your parents do when you were young? My parents were farmers. Primarily, well originally they were produce farmers and then became dairy farmers and had a full herd of Holstein-Friesian cattle. Okay, and what did you do as a child for fun or did you help out? Well, as the oldest child on a farming operation, it's obviously the job to learn the trade. And so I spent my first 18 years actually being the lead hand once I was able to. Started driving vehicles at about age six. And the usual thing that happens on the farming or the farm of that day. So it was truly a family farm. Okay. And what at school, what were your favorite subjects or your strongest subjects? Or your interests? My interests, when I was in school, I think we're just general. I really, to be blunt, didn't know what I would like to do in terms of post-secondary education. And I only had one member of our family who had actually gone on to receive a university degree. So it was interesting when it came time to leave high school and determine where you were gonna go. And as a matter of fact, one of my friends actually applied for me. You can believe that. And so I got into here in college at Western, University of Western Ontario. And there I basically did an arts degree with majors in psychology and zoology. And I guess there was some interest potentially to go into medicine, but I abandoned that particular direction and went on to take a teacher's training course at Oisey and at the University of Toronto. And following that, I went out to Mississauga and at Gordon Graydon Secondary School. I had the opportunity to teach grades nine and 10 science. But I found that after a year that wasn't something that I really wanted to do. So although I guess in the end, I likely ended up being a teacher for the rest of my days, but it was not in the formal sense. And so I went to then to the University of Windsor, which was starting a law school. And I graduated from there. I came back, did my articles in Toronto and went to practice with a firm called Davies Ward and Beck. And there I practiced corporate securities law and taxation, which was something that I again quickly tired of after a couple of years, and came back out here to the country and in a rural area and practice law there for another 25 years approximately in a general way. And during that period of time, I was an advocate for various economic issues. And so I tended to be one who was promoting economic growth in our area. And after that, I suppose that maybe attracted some people to suggest that I should run for parliament. And... So there were other people's suggestions. There was other people's suggestions. This was not my, although I had been asked to run provincially a few years before and I simply declined, I just didn't see it as something that was in my pattern that I wanted to pursue. But I had a change of heart, I guess after enough people approached me and ultimately decided to run for parliament. And as luck would have it, and I do say luck because quite frankly, I think there are so many good people run for parliamentary posts. And you have to be in the right place at the right time with the right party. And that's being very blunt and I was lucky. And they reminded us of that on the day we arrived in parliament and said, realize that you're only here because you're fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. And so I found that my introduction to parliament was very, very basic. I was coming, yes, from a legal background and understanding how to use laws, but not necessarily fully appreciating how laws were created, nor appreciating possibly the way in which laws are created isn't always as pure as one would like to think. That's why they sometimes say that you don't want to know how laws and sausages are made. And it's quite true. In a majority government situation, you can get the full force of the philosophy that's being advanced, but when you come into a minority government situation, it's the story of putting water in your wine. And therefore you do get what I would call impurities in the philosophy you're trying to pursue. Others would argue that actually you're listening to the broader democratic voice and you're actually coming forward with laws that meet others' concerns more broadly. And that may be true. However, in the case of Westray, we are really talking about a majority government situation and we were able to go forward more or less to try to meet the goals that had been set out. What year did you enter office? I entered office in November of 2001. Excuse me, yeah, 2000. 2000. Yes, 2000, because 2001 came up quickly thereafter and then 2002 I did get involved in the justice ministry. Okay, and you had mentioned Westray, Westray Mining Disaster, that happened in 1992. In your words, could you say what you remember from that event or what happened? Well, when I was outside of parliament, of course, was when that occurred. But I did go back and sort of have to learn about Westray in order to properly appreciate what we were trying to do in terms of legislation. And I found it interesting because you see, here we have a person who Clifford Frame, who was the owner of Cura Resources. And he, in I think 1988, announced that he was going to open a mine in Sydney. Or Plymouth, sorry, Plymouth, Nova Scotia. And I guess the history of Plymouth was such that they'd had a number of mines there over the course of time. And yes, they'd had previous explosions because when you're mining coal, coal and methane gas are common friends in that way. So he announced that he was going to open a mine there. And so he went about trying to raise the financing. And I think part of the story is that the federal government helped finance in some respects. The provincial government of Nova Scotia helped finance in some respects. And in the end, both parties were heavily into the support of this mine. And including Nova Scotia agreeing to buy 275,000 tons of coal every year from the mine. And this was quite an economic driver in the area. And each of the parties involved were interested in the economics. I mean, obviously the federal government and the province wanted to make sure that lots of employment. And the owner obviously wanted to make sure he could make a return on his investment. And I think that all works into the theory of, well, so many of these cases where people get intertwined economically and then other issues start to develop. In this particular case, it was fairly early on that they recognized that, and I say they, being the provincial authorities, recognized that the plan for the mine wasn't going ahead exactly as they thought. And in some respects, the mine was, well, first of all, they didn't think that the miners were properly trained. They felt that there hadn't been an emergency plan put in place. They found out that very early on in this process that they were starting to mine in a direction that they hadn't previously stated they were going to do. And so all of a sudden, they're almost foretelling of what might ultimately occur. And so they started the mine in September of 1991. And once the mine opened, I guess there were some pretty early warning signs of the problems that were about to ultimately be pursued because what happened was they had a few roof falls. They had problems with, as I say, no emergency plan and the provincial authorities started to observe that this was happening. And at one point they even said they were going to pull the permit on the mine and that would be the provincial authorities. But as it went on, the next thing that seemed to be a problem in the mine was the amount of coal dust that was allowed to accumulate. And as one learns, coal dust is a very explosive type of particle once it's been suspended. And especially when you combine it with almost like an ignition stage in methane gas. So if it lights, you have this incredible potential for explosion. And in this process, I think that everyone came to the understanding that we were dealing in a very dangerous commodity. And yet at the same time, and I heard rumors personally from people later that in order to keep the mine going and to keep everything operating, that there were actually attempts at taking devices that were to stop vehicles from operating when methane gas got too high in its concentration, that they were being modified so that they could carry on and work. And that to me, I don't know whether it was fact, but certainly was rumored from people I spoke with during this process. And you could understand because everyone was caught between trying to be safe and go home at night. And yet at the same time make a living and not be shut down or find that the mine itself would close. So a lot of conflicting positions, everyone cheering for them to go forward. And yet at the same time, knowing that they were working really on a precipice, that if anything did go wrong, it would be serious consequences. And the provincial government even came along and at one point asked that they get rid of this coal dust and they called it, have it stone dusted, which was taking another aggregate ground up and it somehow minimized the amount of coal dust that would be in the air. But then the mine was only open for eight months, which is quite amazing. And then of course on May the 9th of 1992, the report is that a mining machine ignited methane gas and the methane gas then combined with the coal dust and had this enormous explosion, with 26 miners being killed and only 15 bodies ever being recovered. They finally just entombed the rest and left them there. And yet the mine manager right after the explosion was making a statement publicly that this was as safe a mine as there is. Well, I think ultimately that was proven not to be so. And once the explosion and recovery efforts were finished, the province tried to take action right away and they appointed Mr. Justice Peter Richard to take on an inquiry. Now here we are in 1992. His inquiry really never got, for various reasons, never really got rolling until I think 1995. Because again, one can only sit back and speculate as to what was going on in the politics of the day. But within a few months after the event, the provincial authorities came in and laid some 50 plus charges against mine managers and the company. And those charges weren't in place all that long because what happened was that the RCMP decided they were going to investigate criminally and they did, and they started investigating. So as soon as the RCMP had taken on the criminal investigation, it wasn't very long before the 52 provincial charges were actually dropped. And therefore the RCMP at that point was carrying the load in terms of investigation and potential criminal charges. And in 1993, the RCMP did lay criminal charges of manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death and they charged both the company and two mine managers, as I recall. And the trial on that, now we're now speaking in 1995, so it was two years after that, but the trial started and it wasn't very long before those charges were stayed because in fact there had been legal imperfections, in particular there hadn't been proper disclosure between the defense and crown. So those charges were gone. So here we are in 1995 with no provincial charges having been successfully followed through because they were withdrawn. We have the criminal charges that were thrown out by the court and now the only way we're going to find any hope of resolution and I suppose responsibility being assessed is only through Mr. Justice Richard's inquiry. So Mr. Justice Richard did carry on with his inquiry. As I say, it didn't really get going again until 1995. Now here we are, way some years from the original explosion in 1992. Now he brought out his report in 1997, so two years later. So here a tremendous period of time has passed. There has not been any resolution that's meaningful. The public and the victim's families are really very distressed at this proposition. So in 1997 when the report came out, I felt when I went back and looked, one of the most telling statements about this entire event was a quote, and I will quote Mr. Justice Peter Richard. He said, this is a story of incompetence, of mismanagement, of bureaucratic bungling, of deceit, of ruthlessness, of cover-up, of apathy, of expediency, and of cynical indifference. End of the quote. And you know, the more you study and look at the situation, you came to understand that he was so right in his assessment of what had gone on. And what that means is at the end of the day is the process that we had in place was just not effective and certainly didn't give any recourse for families to pursue. And so 1992 the explosion and its aftermath was significant. But one of his recommendations, Mr. Peter Richard was recommendation number 73 in which he really asked the government of Canada through the Department of Justice Institute of Study on accountability for corporate executives and directors for wrongful or negligent acts of a corporation and that we should introduce through the Parliament of Canada a process whereby we would modify the criminal code or other other statutes as necessary in order to make the workplace and the owners and operators of those workplaces properly accountable for workplace safety. And I think that was what really triggered, I think, a great deal of the ultimate process in Parliament. In Parliament itself, what we found was that the New Democratic Party was instrumental in working with the steelworkers, the United Steelworkers and I can't say enough about the United Steelworkers and the way in which they pursued this on behalf of their workers and the families. They were a constant in all the proceedings that I participated in Parliament. In February, I think the first of the private members' bills, this is 1999, now the report came out after Justice Richard in 1997 and in 1999 we have the first appearance of a private members' bill in the House of Commons. And the House of Commons, again, private members' bills are used quite frequently to raise awareness and to try to encourage the government but rarely do they actually go through and become law themselves or at least not frequently. So in this particular case, the NDP had over a period of time four private members' bills that came forward and in April of 1999, the Honorable Peter McKay had his motion that he brought forward. Again, everyone is trying to raise and elevate the debate on this issue and he brought forward a motion that was debated and it was to get corporate executives and directors to be held properly accountable for workplace safety. And in that, he did help in the process and this was, of course, his writing where this mind disaster had occurred. So he had a very strong interest in moving it forward. And when it was talked about and debated in the House, what were the general reactions from the rest of the House? Generally speaking, the reactions were a great deal of sympathy, a great deal of understanding as to what had gone on. I think the major concern that seemed to arise in all of the discussions and even as we worked our way into a more formal bill was a chill, I think one could say, about the corporate responsibility. I think it extended beyond just the natural resource industry. It extended into, for example, people who held volunteer positions in other organizations. They were equally concerned about their responsibility and especially if you're a volunteer, how would you seek volunteers if in fact they were potentially going to have an incredible liability that followed with it? So I think the feeling that everyone got was a sense of a chill in the broader community of what this might mean. Yes, I think everyone accepted the fact that there should be more responsibility, but I believe that making responsibility more elevated in the corporate structure where people didn't necessarily control the situation but yet could be considered to be the directing mind is where the whole issue started to become a bit dicey because if you don't control the situation you don't necessarily want to be liable. But the way that you deal with that liability is to do all things that are reasonable and expected to make the workplace safe. So that was sort of a sense that was there. There was a sense though within the community and I say that community of stakeholders that there still was a need. But whether we were reaching too far was the next question. So in 2002 when I had just become the parliamentary secretary we were engaged in pursuing one of these bills that had been referred to the Justice Committee and we'd called for briefs and we'd called for witnesses and during the period of time following February of 2002 we heard some 34 witnesses and again as I say received a broad range of briefs from various interested parties and this all came together in a report and then that report was brought before the House in June of 2002 and it was a year after that before the government did eventually bring forward the bill and I guess everyone is always concerned about the passage of time but I think others are equally concerned about trying to get it right and make sure that the legislation reflects the true need and is a remedy for the situation that you see in terms of corporate mentality generally. So we took the time to get at least what we thought was right and so we introduced the bill in June of 2003 and with the introduction of the bill as luck would have it the parliament dissolved the next day so that we didn't get any further in June but when we came back in September we began our debate on the issue of the bill and it's well I guess what we'd say fundamental reform of this area of corporate liability and it was substantially fundamental because it was really changing the way in which you looked at corporations. It isn't easy to do that because we know that corporations you can't imprison you're left with the reality of dealing primarily in fines and we did introduce in the bill the concept of probation so that a corporation could be effectively put into a probationary state. The officers and members of the corporation that had control obviously were going to be asked to meet the standard that was required to keep the workplace safe. Now once we started the debate it became fairly obvious that I think despite the fact that so many years had gone by I mean we're talking a decade basically I think that a parliament itself had established yes they had their picky concerns here and there but at the end of the day one was really struck with the fact that everyone was sympathetic to the cause yes concerned as to how far it reached but in reality the bottom line was it was something that was needed it was necessary and that because the hearings had been had the report had been available for a year and the bill had been worked on to get it to that stage where we thought as a government that it was an appropriate way to address the issue. It became obvious after the debate had started that the parliament was ready to go forward with this bill they felt that it was the best they could do at this point and so it was never voted upon on a voice vote or anything of that nature but rather just adopted by parliament at its second reading and then it went to the committee committee only had it for a day returned it following that reported back to the house the house again adopted the report and that was on October the 27th when it was adopted in the house which given third reading which means it's final subject to royal assent and on onward it went to the senate and it was introduced the senate on the same day October 27 and it was interesting because the senate needless to say appeared to agree fully with what had gone on in the house and again because of the passage of time I think everyone had pretty much accepted the willingness to make a change in the law they simply had I believe only one witness which was Don Pirgoff on behalf of the justice who came before them as a witness and basically explained the entire process that had been outlined in this new bill they immediately passed it and the law was in place in November of that same year so it was an extremely short period of time when you're really from September the 15th to I think about November the 7th I guess it was when it got a final approval a very short period of time and very for most part unusual in parliamentary process but I think everyone knew that it was needed and it was therefore adopted and became the law and from it becoming the law did you see or hear of any reactions of the families or the union you had mentioned the United Steelworkers yeah well the United Steelworkers were there to say they were thrilled and once it passed the House to be fair they were excited and families we'd see family members from time to time especially during the hearings which occurred they would come forward and tell us their stories and encourage us as parliamentarians to go forward and pass legislation that they hoped in the future would stop the potential or at least deter the potential for this type of outcome and the United Steelworkers sure I remember they were so excited that I remember we got our photographs taken together it was a time of celebration really when the bill was passed in the House of Commons knowing that the Senate was likely going to approve it was seen as the victory this long sought victory after as I say more than a decade from the event itself so I think that the one looking at it I mean you think a lot of people who were involved but I think that there is no question that the United Steelworkers really deserved a lot of credit for their lobbying and their friendly support and that they were working with the families as much as possible and making sure that parliamentarians understood the true nature of what had gone on parliamentarians may be wonderful people but they don't have the knowledge that the individuals who were front and center at the time have so it is important to make sure that they do get a chance to catch up all of the details in the background and possible suggestions for how we might remedy the situation and the industry throughout the process first of all how did they participate but were they seen more as positive or combative? there was an element of combativeness and I say that in a muted sense because they were concerned and they were concerned and maybe rightfully so that this would put them at a very high degree of risk especially with respect to their upper management and directors but I don't know where you find the balance and what we were trying to always extend was to them the concept that as long as you did what was reasonable in the circumstances and most people or the so-called reasonable man would see these actions that you took as reasonable to make sure the workplace was safe then we won't necessarily hold you responsible for things that were beyond your control or that in fact would have been applied by that reasonable man test but it was hard for them to accept that so when I say combative I mean it wasn't truly combative but it was certainly argumentative and trying to press their case but in the end we have seen that there haven't been that many situations that have attracted this law since it came into force maybe a dozen instances where it's been used and overall I think that most of the concerns that were originally expressed by the corporate side have been allayed but I'm not sure that all of the volunteer organizations have necessarily accepted it as well but by the same token I don't think that people are being necessarily killed as frequently or maimed in the volunteer sector as they certainly are in the corporate sector so I think the risk just from the beginning is much more minimized and especially when you're into natural resource areas as this was and other natural resource areas I mean there's a greater risk of danger and you just have to try your very best as a good corporate citizen to minimize that When I just interviewed last week Leo Gerard who's the international president of the United Steelworkers but originally from Sudbury he had mentioned as well the Westray bill and said that if you look today there haven't been a lot of there haven't been a lot of opportunities to I guess use this law or oppose the law because in a way it seems to have become a much safer environment Well I would only differ to this extent that I still see that most of the prosecutions that are occurring are provincial or health and safety prosecutions in these events it seems to be fairly rare that they resort to the criminal level of prosecution and I just noticed the sunrise the gas explosion in the last week there were a great number of fines and so forth that were brought forward but again all of those in the end seem to be based on provincial health and safety standards and being prosecuted provincially so again it's hard to know what the right answer is I think the only thing you can say is that if you look at the fatalities in the overall I guess now a couple of decades that you sort of see that the death rate in these situations has remained relatively constant and that being said I guess one would hope that this law Bill C-45 actually did in the end encourage people to be more careful to be more thoughtful and to actually keep workplaces safe I don't think anyone ever goes into any business thinking that they aren't going to try to keep things safe but people get sloppy, they get careless and they have to be reminded and that's where you hope that inspections and provincial inspections will encourage corporations to maintain the highest standard and the threat that one can always lay before them is if you don't and anything happens do you realize what the risks are and point to the criminal law as well as the health and safety standards and I think all of us would like to be moral and upstanding but at the end of the day sometimes economics does funny things to the way in which people function and these things are not always positive and you have to have I think and all the law does is simply outline the boundaries where we think you shouldn't go and if you do go outside those boundaries then we will have an appropriate remedy for you and if you're going you can expect that the full force of the law will be brought to bear and that's the one problem about Westray I mean there were a lot of people scratching their heads and saying how could we have gone through this entire process and never ended up with anyone being successfully prosecuted when 26 people's lives were lost in a situation that was monitored and it was a new mind it was not an old mind it had historical impact I mean yes they were working on the old Ford scene which is a scene that had been mined before but this was a new proposal supposedly using good standards but I guess sometimes you can't anticipate everything and yet that's what the standard is that we expect corporate executives to follow they have to make sure that the people who are doing the day-to-day direction know the rules abide by the rules There was a case maybe a few weeks ago that came out in the paper about a man who was charged he was given jail time for the death of four workers on scaffolding Yes, yes that was metric or metric something of that nature, of that case, yes Would that apply? Would Westray build? Well, the same principles apply, yes but again, one can certainly get themselves into the full force of the law is open to anyone in those situations because that was clearly an occupational health and safety issue where in fact, number one, the individuals on that scaffolding weren't wearing appropriate protective gear, they weren't tied off the scaffolding obviously had some fundamental problem with the way in which it had been put together So that was clearly a situation that this law would have applied to, did apply to but those who prosecute make decisions on how they're going to prosecute and the there are lines of demarcation between provincial and federal prosecutions, so it just depends on, I guess, the nature of how serious is the event, what level of prosecution do they believe would be effective in sending the message to others because in some of these cases the message that you want to send is far better sent with a successful prosecution than it is trying to reach too far and have a failure of your prosecution, so in that regard again, messages are being sent yes, and the fact that you go to jail that does send the message and the problem though with finding is in some of these cases the whole purpose of having a limited company that does the work is because you're limiting the liability, so in terms of monetary fines and so forth there is a point where people will just simply walk away from the company if it doesn't have the asset value or doesn't have the amount of cash that would be required to meet the fines, then it's hard to find the right way to do it but placing a person in authority in jail who was within the corporate structure does bring home a really strong message, that's right Have you ever attempted to work on or have worked on any different laws or regulations that have to do with disasters or working conditions? Not really, no, this was likely the most important one that I dealt with and it was rewarding to see that in the end we did put a law in place that most people felt was going to be helpful in bringing public attention to those in authority, and so I think that's about all you can ever accomplish sometimes as a parliamentarian is trying to outline the boundaries of what is accepted and what is not accepted within our society Is there anything else you'd like to add today? No, well I guess at the end of the day you always say that in doing this and working through the process you learn so much as a parliamentarian and I believe that you hopefully have raised some degree of awareness within you as a parliamentarian that you will carry forward in the days when you're not in parliament and use in other ways and I will say that in looking at these human beings who lost their lives, I mean you realize that's the ultimate sacrifice that these folks have given up and for what you say and I think that's what gets you entangled in the concept of human rights generally and where you find that in going forward looking at every individual as being a valued person within society and trying to find ways to make sure that we do live up to our constitutional obligations because our charter of rights and freedoms which is entrenched within our constitution includes protecting that person and I think at the end of the day each of us really needs to be encouraged to look at every person as an extremely valuable and to do everything possible to let them live the fullest extent that they can within our country and part of that means protecting the person and I think that's if there was anything that you come away with from a parliamentary experience as we did in this Westeray Mine is we need to make sure that we don't have these disasters and that people do go home every night to their families and that they do have an economic base that's safe and secure so that they can support that family and unfortunately that's where these situations have led us into massive problems and yes they don't cease there's always someone out there seemingly making mistakes but I think that each of us should be trying to make sure that we do protect each other and simple message but I think that's really what we're trying to do and I think that Westeray at least was a huge reminder if nothing else