Bill C-5 (Historical)

Offshore Health and Safety Act

An Act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures

This enactment amends the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act (the “Accord Acts”) in order to increase the level of safety and transparency of offshore petroleum activities.
The main purpose of the amendments is to establish a new occupational health and safety regime in the offshore areas.
In addition, it amends the Accord Acts to, most notably,
(a) ensure that occupational health and safety officers, special officers, conservation officers and operational safety officers have the same powers for the administration and enforcement of the Accord Acts;
(b) clarify that the new occupational health and safety regime applies to the transportation of persons who are in transit to, from or between workplaces in the offshore areas;
(c) require that any occupational health and safety regulations that apply to the transportation of persons who are in transit to, from or between workplaces in the offshore areas be made on the recommendation of the Minister of Transport; and
(d) authorize each of the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board to publicly disclose information related to occupational health and safety if it considers it to be in the public interest.
It amends the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act to enable health and safety officers to get privileged information and to enable employers subject to the Accord Acts to apply to the Chief Screening Officer for exemptions from disclosure requirements in the same manner as employers under the Canada Labour Code. It also amends the Access to Information Act to prohibit the disclosure of certain information.
It amends the Canada Labour Code to closely follow the Accord Acts with respect to the time frame for the institution of proceedings, and with respect to prohibitions on the sharing of information and on testimony.
It also amends certain Acts and regulations to make terminological changes that are required as a result of certain amendments to the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and pleasure to rise to debate Bill C-5.

I wish to thank my hon. colleague from St. John's East and my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for the tremendous work they have done in raising the issues with respect to this legislation and bringing the debate forward to the House of Commons.

As someone from the east coast, I am all too familiar with tragedy on our coastline, from ship disasters to the Ocean Ranger disaster off the coast of Newfoundland to the one a few years ago involving a helicopter crash just shy of St. John's where 17 people lost their lives.

This legislation attempts to ensure the safety and protection of not just the natural environment of the east coast but also the workers who work there. If it were done properly in collaboration with the provinces, businesses would get on board and it would be profitable for them.

Allow me to play a little dress-up now and read to the Conservative Party what the bill proposes to do.

Canada, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador agreed to join law reform negotiations in 2001 following the fatality off the shore of Nova Scotia in 1999. The provinces cannot enact the new law without federal agreement to make the same changes. Bill C-5 would provide regulatory boards with the operating authority to disclose relevant occupational and safety information to the public.

The bill would allocate overall responsibility for occupational health and safety to the operator. The employer would play an implementation and coordination role in this regard. Employees are to take all reasonable measures to comply with occupational health and safety measures. This one is a surprise and I do not know why the Conservatives would be against it. Bill C-5 would provide employees with the right to refuse to perform an activity that they have reasonable cause to believe is unsafe. The bill would afford employees protection from reprisals for reporting unsafe conditions.

Bill C-5 is timely legislation as Nova Scotians will see explorations off their coast by Shell and BP for the first time since the 2010 BP oil spill off the Gulf Coast.

Let me make a little sidebar comment.

On April 28, Canada's flags were lowered to half mast to pay homage to all of the people who went to work last year and died. Over 1,000 Canadians went to work and did not go home. Everybody in the House was mournful and very aware of the fact that workplace safety must be paramount in everyone's daily lives. We as members of Parliament and people we work with here are provided with security and the assurance that the House of Commons is safe and has good working conditions. If we notice something unsafe, we have the right to say something and have it corrected.

Why would the Conservatives oppose something that would enhance and protect workplace safety after standing so quietly and mourning the 1,000 Canadians who died in the workplace? We simply do not understand. Hopefully one day one of those Conservative members will explain to the House and to the working people of Canada and their families why they refused a clause of that nature.

Despite the federal government's refusal to implement recommendation 29 of the Wells inquiry, Bill C-5 is a positive and necessary improvement to the current offshore health and safety regime by placing safety practices in legislation.

New Democrats are proud to support Bill C-5. For several years now we have been calling for the regime to be strengthened.

New Democrats will continue to work with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador to further strengthen worker health and safety by working toward the creation of an independent, stand-alone safety regulator. The NDP also supports the collaborative efforts of the provincial and federal governments that produced Bill C-5. Unfortunately, the Conservative government does not collaborate often enough with the provincial and territorial governments to produce measures that would move our country forward.

We encourage the Conservatives to get into the game on this one and understand the importance of this legislation. We urge them to work with the provinces to get this done.

We would all like to see employment and growth in all sectors, including offshore or terrestrial areas.

We must do this with the highest standards of workplace safety and with the highest standards of environmental regulations.

I could not help but notice recently that the categorization of a certain whale off the west coast was changed. Why? It seems so timely before the possible approval of a pipeline in that area.

Why would someone change the classification of an endangered species? It could only be to make it more feasible or easier for an application to be processed.

I know these companies. They are not evil. They obviously want to make profits, grow their industry, and create jobs, and that is good, but at the same time, I am sure that a lot of these companies would like to have the highest of environment standards as well.

All that Canadians and those good folks in my former province of British Columbia are asking for is input. They want to be at the table. They want to have their voices heard honestly and fairly. They do not like to go to meetings to find a decision has already been made and they are just there for show, or in my case eye candy, but we will talk about that later.

The reality is that we cannot ignore the wishes and desires of the Canadian people. They are the ones who put us here. It is our job, and the regulator's job, to have proper and fair consultation and input with these folks before these major projects go on.

At the end of the day, I am not an expert on pilot whales, nor would I ever say I was, but I am very concerned about the environment. A lot of my friends work in the oil patch sector, and they are also concerned. They love what they do, and they make very good money at what they do. They leave their families for long, extended periods of time to work in the oil fields and then they come back. They also have children, and they are also concerned about the natural environment.

They are also concerned when a helicopter coming back from a rig crashes into the water. We found out that one of the aspects of the helicopter was that it did not have a 30-minute run-dry capacity. Recommendations came forward, but we still have not seen compliance on those yet. In fact, we may be purchasing helicopters for our military that may not have that capability.

I do not know why we would do this. We already had a tragedy, and in a small province like Newfoundland and Labrador, a tragedy of that nature affects everyone, and it affects all Canadians. These things do happen, but we can learn from those mistakes and make sure they do not happen again.

Government and the opposition should be working together to ensure the highest standards of safety and that protocols are in place to make sure that never happens again.

If it does happen again, who is ultimately responsible? Is it the company, is it the regulator, or is it the governments? It is probably all three, but explain that to a grieving widow or grieving children who have lost a loved one. Those are conversations we do not want to have.

If we can do it in advance, if we can move the safety issue forward in collaboration with the provinces and then again with industry, then we can exploit the resources we have on both coasts in a proper and environmentally friendly manner so that traditional fishing grounds, for example, can still be exploited, as well as other opportunities for future growth in our economy.

We cannot do that if we risk the environmental aspect of our terrestrial and aquatic systems. We simply cannot do that. We share the planet with the others.

In this I pay tribute to the late Farley Mowat, a great veteran, a great Canadian, and a great novelist who passed away today. He always said to all the politicians that we have to understand that although we are the human race, we share this planet with others. Those others do not have a voice, and those others—the whales, the birds, the fish, the trees, the plants—also share this planet with us as well. We need to ensure that just as importantly as we address workplace health and safety, we address these environmental issues properly.

We encourage the Conservatives to please get on board with Bill C-5 and pass it unanimously.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech, his compassion, and his commitment to the issue and to offshore workers. He managed to get a tremendous number of issues into one speech. I commend him for that as well, because it is a complicated matter.

I want to emphasize that the reason we are supporting this bill, despite the fact that it has some shortcomings, is that draft regulations governing offshore safety were in place for almost 20 years. Finally, after 10 years of negotiations and discussion, the bill came forward as a result of the hard work by the members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, and the two governments in co-operating on this bill. It is very important that it be passed with some urgency.

However, we did want to use the opportunity to talk about some of the shortcomings. One of them is the fact that it does not include the most important recommendation from the Honourable Robert Wells, which was to have a stand-alone safety regulator. He said this regulator should be powerful, independent, knowledgeable, and equipped with expert advice.

Can the member comment on the failure of the government to accept that a stand-alone regulator should be put in place?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for St. John's East for that important question, but it tends to be the typical Conservative response. The Conservatives do not like the idea of “completely independent from government”. They will argue that it is an arm's-length agency, but they still want it to be within reach of them so that they control not only the budget but the messaging from that.

It is critical, from the Wells report and what my hon. colleague said, that we have an independent stand-alone person in this particular regard who is well financed and well equipped. Governments change all the time, but the fact is we want to ensure that this person has the tools to bring out the shortcomings to make everybody aware of what may happen and also make continued recommendations independent of the political world, to ensure the health and safety of all the people in this particular industry.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend this member for the wise words he has uttered in this place. He has served this Parliament for 17 years, and so he has an amassed wisdom of knowledge and also compassion. I have to underline his compassion. He talks to people in his riding constantly. He talks to them here. He is in constant contact with them and he has compassion for these people. When he talks about feeling the grief of someone who has lost a loved one, he knows what he is talking about because he spends time with them, looks at them eye to eye, and he is honest and compassionate in his approach.

The current government could learn quite a bit from this member, who is also the parliamentarian of the year, in terms of talking to Canadians and talking to the provinces. We know the record of the current government. Whether it be the inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women or the federal-provincial health accord, the Canadian health transfer, employment insurance reform, temporary foreign workers, Canada job grant, OAS, search and rescue, infrastructure, or police officer recruitment fund, we know that the Conservatives do not collaborate with the provinces and they do not talk to them face to face.

Can this member elaborate on how an NDP government would approach collaborating with the provinces?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what a brilliant dissertation from my hon. colleague, a member of Parliament who will be here for many elections, I am sure.

It is very telling that the Prime Minister has never, in his eight years as Prime Minister, had a meeting with all the premiers at the same time. We have to ask ourselves why. However, I can assure members that the hon. leader of the NDP, I can almost guarantee, will have those meetings, not just on a group level but on individual levels to move this country in a forward and positive direction. That is what they are going to get when we form government in 2015.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. He is well informed and works hard in his riding. I think we can all learn from his work ethic.

I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-5. Oil and gas production is a hot topic in eastern Canada and eastern Quebec. People are increasingly aware that oil will be routed through eastern Canada and more oil deposits are going to be developed. The legislative framework needs to provide environmental protection and keep workers safe. We are not there yet.

This bill is a step in the right direction. That is why I am pleased to say that I will be supporting it at third reading. However, it does contain some significant flaws. I hope that over the coming years, months and even weeks, we will be able to resolve the problems that we are already anticipating.

I would like to point out several of those problems. We know that in eastern Quebec, the Gulf of St. Lawrence is a closed environment that is unlike any other. There is mirror legislation in Quebec, negotiated by the federal government and the Quebec government, that we need to pass so that Quebec will have its own offshore petroleum board. Quebec is still without a board because no decision has been made about the precise location of the border between Quebec and Newfoundland. It is a side issue, but I hope it will be resolved soon.

People in Quebec are closely following the agreements between the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board and the Nova Scotia board. The two provincial governments, as well as the federal government, will work diligently and give us ideas and solutions we can work with.

However, we have our doubts. The Gulf of St. Lawrence is shared by five provinces, half of Canadian provinces. It is always difficult to develop a legislative framework that five provinces can agree on.

We have seen that. My colleague raised that point recently in a question about the fact that the Prime Minister of Canada never meets with his provincial counterparts. In reality, he might be scared to meet with them about this legislative framework for the environment and worker safety in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Five provinces is not insignificant. However, this must be done. We must ensure that the gulf is protected.

Over the past 30 years, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has done impressive work. However, we know that there are many shortcomings that the board must now address. The board has just released its strategic environmental assessment for the coming years. In its environmental strategy, this board also acknowledges these shortcomings where oil development in eastern Canada is concerned.

In his fall 2012 report, which was not released until spring 2013, the environment commissioner noted that there are insufficient oil spill response tools. Unfortunately, this was not addressed in the bill before us.

I want to come back to what these shortcomings raised by the environment commissioner mean. It is important that the people in my riding understand. For example, at paragraph 1.83 of his 2012 report, he says:

The Canadian Coast Guard has equipment for responding to oil spills from ships...the Coast Guard does not have a mandate to respond to spills from such facilities and so does not have the resources or equipment that might be needed to deal with a major spill. The Coast Guard does maintain a stockpile of dispersant, but, as noted earlier, current rules do not allow the use of this substance in Canadian waters.

We should think about this. According to the environment commissioner, the Coast Guard is not equipped to deal with spills, and what is more, use of dispersant is not even allowed in Canada. That is a rather major problem.

Something not mentioned in this report that I would like to point out is that the Gulf of St. Lawrence freezes in the winter. It is all ice. If there was a spill in the winter, we would be in a really difficult position and we would have a lot of trouble cleaning it up. We doubt the Coast Guard could clean up a spill in the wintertime.

Projects are going to be getting under way soon. There will be pipelines across Canada. There will be a pipeline all the way to Saint John, New Brunswick. There could be a terminal in Cacouna, Quebec. There is also a project coming to Belledune, where millions of barrels of oil will be shipped by rail every week. Right now, all of this is a concern for people in eastern Canada. What will happen if there is a spill?

Projects are moving forward quickly. When the environment commissioner tells us that there are shortcomings that have not been addressed, we need to think about whether the bill before us goes far enough to really allay the concerns of people in my region. Unfortunately, I do not think that most people in my region will be satisfied with Bill C-5 as it stands today. However, I think they will agree that it is a step in the right direction, at least in terms of worker safety.

I would like to come back to the issue of workers. The NDP finds it very hard to accept that the government prevented us from protecting workers even better through the creation of a stand-alone safety regulator. That was not done. In the bill today, we wanted to see safety measures that are independent of government. Hon. members will recall that half of the members of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, as well as the Nova Scotia board, are appointed by the federal government. This organization is very close to the federal government. It is not independent. We would like to see more independence, but unfortunately, that is not happening.

The NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador clearly said that it would like to see the powers of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board divided. It would like to see a separation of powers. The party has been calling for this for years and, unfortunately, the bill before us does not take this request into account.

The government would be well advised to negotiate better and take more time with its provincial partners to ensure that the legislative framework they negotiate is adequate. The government is unfortunately not taking the time to do that.

During the debates in committee here in Ottawa, the NDP proposed that this legislative framework be reviewed in five years. The United States tends to do that a lot, but it does not happen often enough in Canada. After a given amount of time, parliamentarians would automatically be required to make sure that the legislation is still adequate.

A number of witnesses in committee brought up the many flaws in the bill, so it would make even more sense to regularly review the legislation. We are talking about economic growth, and this would also help ensure that the offshore environment in eastern Canada is protected for future generations. I do not think that the legislative framework in front of us today goes far enough.

Once again, I want to point out that this bill is a step in the right direction. It is an important step, but it should be more extensive and exhaustive. Witnesses told us what we need to do, and we should listen to them.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague the same question. As I said, the bill is great because it improves working conditions for workers in the oil sector.

I would like to thank the government for recognizing the importance of occupational health and safety. However, as I said, the oil needs to be transported, put on trains and shipped across Canada so that people can use it.

What is the government's logic? For the first time since that major BP spill, there will be new drilling and exploration to increase Canada's oil extraction capabilities. Why not deal with our railways? Why put people in danger by transporting dangerous goods by rail? I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question.

Many people share that concern. Rail safety is another element, but one that is central to the bill before us. Oil will also be transported by sea and by rail. We know that the tremendous increase in the transportation of oil by rail in recent years has caused great concern, not to mention the Lac-Mégantic problem. There has been quite a significant increase in both western and eastern Canada. We definitely need a much more comprehensive regulatory regime for rail safety.

However, if we go back to the mandate of the Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia offshore petroleum boards, and also the soon to be established Quebec board, what we see is that oil will be transported by rail until it can eventually be transported by sea. The two are connected. We want a legislative framework that will protect people, the environment, the fisheries and future generations. We are not there yet. The government must adopt a legislative framework that is much more comprehensive than this one. Once again, we are headed in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one major surprise about the bill is that the government consulted the provinces. We know that the modus operandi of the Prime Minister and his entourage is not to consult the provinces, whether we are talking about the inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, the federal-provincial agreement on health care, the Canada health transfer, employment insurance reform, temporary foreign workers, the Canada job grant, old age security, and the list goes on.

Can my colleague describe the difference between the NDP and Conservative approaches when it comes to relations with the provinces and Canadians in general?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin with relations with the provinces. As far as relations with Canadians are concerned, I will leave it up to them to use their vote in 2015 to express how they feel about the job the government has done over the past few years. I think that the Conservatives will not be happy with the result.

As we know, the Prime Minister of Canada does not meet with his provincial counterparts. This is a serious problem. The partnership that makes Canada a confederation seems to escape the government. Unfortunately, the consequence of that is that the provinces are always fighting with the federal government. That is no way to govern a country. All it does is create discord.

In the bill, we want to see a legislative framework that reflects a partnership. For example, I would like the government to look closely at the strategic study by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, which was released two days ago, and the study by Genivar in Quebec, released a few months ago. Their recommendations are quite interesting. Perhaps the government could learn a thing or two.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.