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Joel Harden

  • MPP
  • Member of Provincial Parliament
  • Ottawa Centre
  • New Democratic Party of Ontario
  • Ontario
  • 109 Catherine St. Ottawa, ON K2P 0P4 JHarden-CO@ndp.on.ca
  • tel: 613-722-6414
  • fax: 613-722-6703
  • JHarden-QP@ndp.on.ca

  • Government Page

I want to thank the member for his comments. I found those very informative. I knew about your workplace history, but I didn’t know about your dad. That’s quite a story.

I had occasion to learn a bit about the Hoggs Hollow tragedy of March 17, 1960, that involved five immigrant Italian workers. I’m sure that was part of what you were remembering at the celebration—sorry, not a celebration; the day of mourning that you referenced.

I just want to introduce for the record and get your reaction to the Heron Road Workers Memorial Bridge. That’s our tragedy in Ottawa. On August 10, 1966, it killed nine workers and injured 60 others when an improperly built bridge collapsed and sent 183 to hospital. It was a real tragedy, Speaker, and I’m just wondering if the member, inspired by his comments on this bill—do you think this should be written into the curriculum, that the children in elementary and secondary school should be required to learn a little bit about these sacrifices that were made to build the infrastructure and how we should never be repeating these precedents again, to make sure everybody gets to go to work safe and gets to come home safe?

211 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
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