Thank you, Mr. Speaker, honourable Members. Mr. Speaker, such a panel could review that report and further review standards across Canada and then make recommendations for immediate action to change our current Labour Standards Act. Such a panel could also advise on what further action might be necessary.
With the proper terms of reference, such an approach could ensure that essential amendments to our Labour Standards Act could be ready for consideration, perhaps by our June session; at the latest, by the new Legislative Assembly before the end of this calendar year.
Mr. Speaker, the panel which reported on the Labour Standards Act in 1990 found much of our existing act too ambiguous and open to varied interpretation and inconsistent with current practise in other jurisdictions. As they said in their report, an employment standards act must be clear, concise and simply written, and must fulfil the expectations and requirements necessary for the decade of development that appears to be coming in the 1990s.
Mr. Speaker, we are now more than half way through this decade and nothing has been done to update our labour standards. It is time to get on with the job. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause