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

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, having grown up in a part of the country that is known for being the focal point of oil refining and development, northern Alberta and Fort McMurray, I am delighted to know that many of the individuals helping to grow Canada's economy are Atlantic Canadians.

The offshore contributes significantly to our nation's production, including 35% of Canada's total light crude production and close to 10% of Canada's total crude production 2010. These are substantial numbers that are driving the economies of Newfoundland and Labrador as well as contributing to Nova Scotia's economy.

The statistics are very clear. These activities represented 30% of Newfoundland and Labrador's GDP in 2010 and roughly 3% of Nova Scotia's GDP in the same timeframe. It directly employs over 5,100 Canadians.

The oil and gas sector in Atlantic Canada is growing. It is great for Canadians, it is great for Atlantic Canadians, and it is great for individuals to know they are contributing so substantially to the Canadian economy and making sure there are jobs at home supporting thousands of Atlantic Canadians.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we have raised the issue of an independent regulator a number of times. As my colleague for St. John's East said, it was an important recommendation in Commissioner Wells' report. We have supported the bill because it is an improvement over the current situation. Nonetheless, this is something that needs to be addressed.

At committee, the NDP moved an amendment to ask for a ministerial review of the effectiveness of these changes within five years. The commissioner had indicated that while the bill was an improvement, it might not answer everything and that there might be a need to address in the future and to make revisions at a later point in time. Also, having an independent regulator is something that other nations doing similar work have done. Therefore, why would the minister not be willing to support an amendment that would allow the minister to do a review within five years?

Let us remember that we are trying to ensure the safety of the men and women who work in this industry and to fully protect us from environmental disasters.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, I think the committee testimony was quite clear.

The regulatory process has begun and we will be continuing the development of regulations following the passage of the bill. Provisions within the proposed amendments require that the regulations be completed within the next five years, and we are continuing to receive input.

However, whether it be the government or others, we are always open to constructive input that provides opportunities to improve the health and safety of Canadians. If opposition members or other Canadians have recommendations that we should be considering, I encourage them to send them to me.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak at third reading on Bill C-5, an important piece of legislation for the Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia offshore petroleum industries, which are extremely important not only to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, but also to Canada, as pointed out by previous speakers.

As was said, the industry produces 35% of Canadian light crude production, is a significant contributor to our oil industry, and has made a significant difference to the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador. We are proud of the very strong industry that we have and the contribution it makes to our workforce and our industry, to our universities, our education system, as well as to the lives of people who are able to earn a very good living from its development.

It has been a positive experience, but we also know that work on the offshore is inherently dangerous. We have had very sad reminders of that in the past. The Ocean Ranger disaster in February 1982 was mentioned, where 84 offshore workers were drowned in a serious disaster, where a rig engaged in exploration of the offshore in Newfoundland sank and, of course, most recently, the Cougar Helicopter crash in 2009 with the loss of 17 lives. There was another helicopter crash in the late 1980s. So we do know that we have an industry with a lot of opportunity for injury as well as loss of life, as we have sadly seen.

That is what the bill is about. The bill would put in place a safety regime in legislation, believe it or not, for the first time in the offshore. What we have had up until now is a set of draft regulations. It is almost hard to believe that the entire offshore in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia was operated under a set of draft regulations, under some theory that if we had the draft regulations it would force the employers, the industry players, and the companies to follow them as if they were guidelines.

However, there were no enforcement mechanisms.The only enforcement mechanisms were to put a stop work order on the rig. But that was an all or nothing situation. One could not actually go and inspect and find someone who had violated a provision and use those rules to make an improvement, to issue a fine, and use the same regulatory process used in health and safety to ensure compliance with the rules.

I have some experience with offshore workers. In my life as a lawyer, I represented Newfoundland and Labrador offshore oil workers in their efforts to obtain union representation and recognition. They in fact became the first offshore oil workers in North America to achieve collective bargaining. Of course, important aspects of collective bargaining include wages and working conditions, but there was also an extreme level of interest in the process of safety committees, how safety was being managed by these companies and employers, and on the part of employees and their elected organizations in participating fully in this process.

We have seen as well a very significant delay in the implementation of significant recommendations that came, for example, from the Ocean Ranger disaster. One of them was that an emergency helicopter should be stationed in the area closest to the offshore and be available on up to 45 minutes' notice. That was not implemented. That recommendation was made in 1985 and it did not become implemented until the last year or so, after Justice Wells stated that he wanted this to happen immediately. We now have a standby helicopter at St. John's available to wheel up in 20 minutes any time another helicopter is in the area transporting workers back and forth to the oil platforms and drilling platforms. That took 20 or 30 years to be put in place.

The negotiations with respect to this legislation have been going on for 13 years. It is astonishing.

With the minister having said that this is a top priority and that job one is the health and safety of offshore workers, the delays that have taken place and the length of time that it has taken to get these regulations in place are shocking. That is something that the workers are quite concerned about, and have been for many years.

We still have concerns, and the workers have concerns, about the use of night flights for helicopters. Former Justice Wells, during the course of the helicopter inquiry, issued an interim recommendation that there be no more night flights. Evidence had been presented to the helicopter inquiry that it is significantly more difficult to rescue people at night and that the rate of loss of life when a helicopter ditches at night is some 65% to 70% higher than if the ditching happens in the daylight. As a result of his recommendation, the C-NLOPB stopped night flights. The companies are now seeking to return to night flights, and there is strong opposition to that from many quarters, including the workers and the workers representatives; so we still see ongoing issues and problems.

However, I want to reiterate that we support this legislation because it was pushed by the workers' representatives who were involved both directly in the offshore and also with the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour. They participated in these negotiations in Nova Scotia. They worked to ensure that the same kinds of safety regimes that exist on land, in terms of the right of a worker to refuse unsafe work and to participate in health and safety committees, are now parallel in the offshore. That is an achievement. Therefore, it is not a surprise that people support this legislation; it is an advance over what is there today. The regulations would be in place. They would be enforceable. There would be a system for that and a more rigorous involvement of worker representatives in health and safety committees. That is a success.

Therefore, we support it. We have supported it through committee. We did want improvements. I will provide an example of the kind of evidence the committee heard from witnesses. I would like to quote from the presentation by Lana Payne, who is the Atlantic director for Unifor at the moment but was the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour for a number of years.

In her testimony before the committee, she said:

...we are pleased that we finally have this safety regime for workers of the offshore oil industry, but we do believe that a stand-alone, powerful, and independent safety and environmental authority is not only necessary but also essential in advancing safety in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore oil and gas industry.

That was her testimony before the committee on December 9 of last year. That echoes recommendation number 29 of Mr. Justice Wells, which he characterized as his most important recommendation. He did that based on his study of regimes in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and Norway. Even the United States has recognized the necessity of having a separate regime so that the health and safety of offshore workers is dealt with separately in the regulation of the industry, which involves quite a lot of collaborative work back and forth. The concern is what Mr. Justice Wells called regulatory capture.

That is a phrase used to describe what can happen if the regulator becomes very close to the industry it is regulating and ends up not being able to be independent and provide the sole priority of looking after the health and safety of workers.

That is why this recommendation was made and that is why these countries that have mature oil and gas regimes, such as Norway and the U.K. in the North Sea, have adopted it as a result of learning that it was necessary to make sure they had, as Lana Payne has so eloquently put it, “...a stand-alone, powerful, and independent safety and environmental authority...”. That is what is required. The Newfoundland government supported that recommendation. We have a truly bilateral event here. We have not been given an explanation by the minister as to why the Government of Canada has said no. Why has it said no? The government has not provided any rationale in the minister's speech today, despite two questions to the minister—or was it three?—asking why that was.

Mr. Justice Wells still supports his recommendations. The Government of Newfoundland is very adamant that it wants to see a stand-alone offshore safety body that can handle safety and health issues, and we would add environment to that, as well, as Lana Payne has pointed out.

We do have reservations, obviously, about this. We thought that at least the government would recognize, if it was not going to adopt recommendation number 29 and put in place a stand-alone review, and accept the amendment, which is:

The Minister of Natural Resources must cause to be laid before each House of Parliament, not later than five years after this Act comes into force, a report on the operation and implementation of this Act, including whether an independent offshore area regulator is desirable.

That would require this notion of the independent safety regulator to be foremost in the mind of the government as we go forward and, in five years, report to Parliament: “What can you tell us about the operation of this act, in light of the recommendation for an independent regulator? Can you show us that it has operated well without that? Or have you been able to conclude that an offshore separate regulator is available?”

That was an important effort and we thought that, from the point of view of government operations, particularly in light of the strong recommendation that has come forward and the strong support of the Newfoundland government, the partner in this, we would see agreement on that at least. But, no, it got very short shrift at the committee from the government members without really any effort to justify why they were not accepting that.

However, that is not unusual from the current government. It is not unusual for us to go to committee with cogent arguments, with witness support, with experts and expertise, and time and again this happens in committees with the current government.

It has not always been like that. I was here with another government, a Progressive Conservative government, back in the 1980s. We had committee meetings. We offered suggestions. We made amendments. The amendments were debated. Some were accepted; some were rejected. It was a somewhat more collegial effort, shall we say, than we have in committee with the current government.

Anything the government proposes has to be perfect. It must be perfect. Of course, it is perfect until it realizes it has made some mistakes and then it brings in a bunch of amendments itself, as it did in this case. I think it brought forward 10 at the end of the day: “Oh, we've got to fix this, this, and this”; but if anybody else makes a suggestion: “Oh, no. It's perfect as it is. We don't need to change anything because, of course, we wouldn't bring anything forward if it wasn't right and proper”.

That is an unfortunate attitude. I do not know whether it represents paranoia, immaturity, lack of confidence, or just sheer pigheadedness, but the current government does not seem to recognize that any good suggestions can come from any location other than its side of the House, or maybe from the PMO.

Maybe all suggestions must flow from the PMO instead of members opposite who are listening to what is said in committee, accepting that the arguments make sense, and agreeing that the legislation may need to be amended slightly to make it better.

That is the theory of debate and amendment. Amendments are made to improve legislation, not to change it so that it would do something different from what was intended. If an amendment goes against the original intention of the legislation, it is ruled out of order. The only amendments acceptable in parliamentary procedure are ones that are within the scope of the bill and are offered by way of improvement to better achieve the purposes of the bill.

The purpose of this legislation is to have an offshore health and safety regime that reflects the needs of the people in the industry and the industry itself. Its purpose is to have a robust safety regime that ensures the safety of all workers and that ensures that the operation can be done properly, as the minister mentioned, both on site and also in transit back and forth to the oil platforms and rigs.

It has been pointed out that three rigs are presently in operation and another one is in the works, which should be operating by 2017. The Hebron-Ben Nevis field is farther out, some 400 kilometres offshore, which is a very grave distance. Helicopters fly out there in all sorts of sea conditions—obviously not in too inclement weather—that make it difficult to ditch an aircraft, if that becomes necessary. In this case, the helicopter that is being used is the only helicopter of its class that does not have a 30-minute run dry capability, which is when the main gearbox loses oil. It is required that a helicopter be able to operate for 30 minutes with a total loss of oil in the main gearbox. That requirement is for significant safety reasons. It is a requirement for military helicopters, some of which will run dry for an hour or more, but the minimum standard is 30 minutes.

When Sikorsky designed this helicopter, it received an exemption on the basis that this would never happen, or that the chances of it ever happening were remote, one in ten million hours. In the first 100,000 flying hours of helicopters of this type it happened twice, in Australia in the summer of 2008 and in the offshore of Newfoundland in March of 2009. In Australia, the helicopter was fortunately over land and the pilots could land it quickly to avoid a disaster. The second time it tragically happened in the offshore of Newfoundland. Unfortunately the documentation for this aircraft suggested that it did have 30-minute run dry capability. The helicopter pilots were heading for land, expecting to have 30 minutes to get there, but they had less than 12 minutes. The helicopter seized up and crash-landed into the ocean, causing the loss of 17 of the 18 people onboard. Miraculously, one person survived that crash.

As has been said, this is a significant step forward. We would have an enforceable health and safety regime in the offshore. Workers would have the right to refuse unsafe work and participate on health and safety committees. Hopefully, we will have a good regime that will work. Unfortunately, we do not have the independent safety regulator that was recommended by Commissioner Wells and supported by the government and people of Newfoundland and Labrador and the offshore workers themselves. Unfortunately, the government will not commit to reviewing that in five years. However, we do support the legislation.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for St. John's East for his intervention and acknowledge that he has been around this file on the offshore for some time. I am going to lean on him for his knowledge and expertise in this matter to follow up on a question that I tried to ask the minister regarding the Ocean Ranger and Chief Justice Alex Hickman's commission.

The report had 136 recommendations to improve the offshore oil industry. The government has only implemented 90 of those 136. That leaves 46 recommendations unfulfilled from that particular inquiry. My question is whether any of the 46 recommendations have made their way into this legislation to improve the offshore off of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

We talked about the other inquiry, and there were two recommendations left out, but I am curious about the Ocean Ranger inquiry. Have any of the 46 recommendations that have been left undone made their way into this legislation at all?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have been involved for a long time. In fact, I participated in the Ocean Ranger inquiry when it was launched in 1982, as a new young lawyer in St. John's, in Newfoundland and Labrador. A great deal of effort and anxiety went into coming up with these recommendations.

Unfortunately, as the member pointed out, the recommendation of having a rescue helicopter available was, shockingly, not implemented until after the Cougar helicopter crashed, more than 25 years after the recommendations were made.

I do not have a compendium of all of the recommendations. Clearly, the Ocean Ranger recommendation is now in place. It was not thanks to this legislation, but it was thanks to the recommendation of former Justice Wells that we have the helicopter for search and rescue purposes. There are outstanding recommendations, as the hon. member has pointed out, and they should be attended to. An evacuation system is a recommendation that has been worked on over the years. I do not think that we have the right system yet. There are still other recommendations that need to be looked at.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously we are biased in favour of this bill and we will support it because we always get behind worker health and safety measures. It is sad that, as usual, nothing changes until someone dies. I am not saying that is always the case, but it is often the case.

I have a question for my hon. colleague about the bill before us. Big changes have been made and we are moving in the right direction, but now we are up against one of this government's ideological impediments, which is that private industry should self-regulate. We have seen this in other sectors, such as rail transportation. Is that why Justice Wells' recommendation to create an independent worker safety authority—which was probably the most important recommendation—is not in this bill?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question, and particularly for his observation about how the Conservative government has been working with respect to recommendations of a health and safety nature.

Safety does cost money. We have seen the resistance by industry to advances that cost money. They obviously do not want to spend money where they do not have to. It does require a government that is vigorous in insisting that the things that need to happen do happen, for the sake of offshore worker safety. We see some of that here, but we do not see it going far enough.

The night flights offshore are a good example. Why do we need night flights? We need them so we can operate the same number of helicopters for a greater period of time. The alternative is to have more helicopters. If we had an extra helicopter, we would not have to fly at night. However, extra helicopters cost money. There has to be a crew.

There is a trade-off being urged between worker safety and cost. We would clearly prefer to come down on the side of worker safety. If night flights are more dangerous, we should be able to insist that there are more helicopters in place. If helicopters that have a run-dry capability of 30 minutes are available, then they should be used, not the ones that do not have the capability. They may cost more money and there may be a cost in replacing them, but the value of the lives and safety of workers has to take precedence over that. We do not see that kind of attitude coming from the Conservative government.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the intervention by my friend from St. John's East.

You spoke, I thought very eloquently about your work in committee and the fact that there was no statutory—

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I would remind the member for Victoria to direct his comments to the Chair, not to other members.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, through you, the member for St. John's East made a very eloquent statement about the nature of the work at committee on this matter and the fact that the government rejected the notion of a five-year review. Having worked on committees in which that five-year process has been required, such as under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, and having seen a Progressive Conservative government release a unanimous committee report with recommendations, I saw first-hand the utility of such a statutory review.

My question is twofold. Given that this bill requires agreement with the two provinces at issue, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, would the Conservatives find such a statutory review acceptable after a five-year period? I would like to also know why the government would reject the notion of a five-year review in these circumstances.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention and compliments from my learned friend and colleague for my speech, but I think he knows that I cannot answer why the Conservatives would reject it, other than to speculate.

There appears to be an unfortunate lack of collegiality at committee. Politicians obviously posture, especially in the House of Commons, but in committees one would expect to have a greater level of collegiality. In some committees there is that collegiality. I am looking at the prominent member of the fisheries committee, which has had collegiality as an operating principle over many years. However, when it comes to dealing with legislation, we do not see the collegiality that should exist to improve and make things happen.

That was a reasonable—though I would not call it a compromise. New Democrats were not going to get what we wanted. However, the committee should have been able to put that on the radar of the current government, or the next government. It may not be the current government. We are hoping it will not be the Conservative government, but it might be. Whatever government is in place, it would be on the radar of that government that this should be looked at. The bureaucracy and those involved would then look forward to this happening in five-years' time and be able to prepare to deal with that.

It is very unfortunate. That is all I can say. I do not know why that is, except stubbornness. Whatever is in the legislation that Conservatives put there is all that they want to do.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-5. This is the second day this week that the House has debated legislation that impacts activities in the offshore sector, which, to those of us in Atlantic Canada, like my colleague the member for St. John's East, who just spoke, and the member for Avalon, who asked him a question, is very important. It is very important to our economy and to the people who work in the offshore sector who benefit from that. It is very important that they are safe in the work they do and in travelling to and from the offshore platforms.

The offshore sector can be a dangerous place. I know there are many measures taken to make it as safe as possible, but it is tough work. It can be dangerous work, and we have seen unfortunate proof of that over the years. In fact, there are brave men and women working out there every day performing very challenging work.

Making sure that these people are safe in their workplaces and that they return home to their families must be a priority for all of us. Bill C-5 is a step in the right direction.

However, I hope the government will actually listen to experts on Bill C-22, which we debated on Tuesday, because it did not listen to experts with respect to Bill C-5, which we are discussing today.

When the House was debating second reading of Bill C-5, the member for Burnaby—Douglas asked if I thought the legislation went far enough in addressing the concerns of the Wells royal commission.

I did not, and I do not. One concern I have with Bill C-5 is that it did not adopt recommendation 29 of the Wells commission report, which flowed from a terrible helicopter crash off Newfoundland. That was already discussed a bit this morning.

My hope was that when the bill went to committee there would be consideration given to an amendment to adopt recommendation 29, which called for a separate organization to look at the question of workers' health and safety, an organization solely dedicated to that absolutely vital task.

Commissioner Wells testified at the committee last fall that he “felt that an independent safety authority was the best choice..”. Commissioner Wells went on to add that he did not think everyone would agree with the recommendation. That is reasonable. He included a fallback position, which was to create a separate safety division within the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. Of course, this legislation would also apply to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board.

While the fallback position was adopted, in my view it falls short of what is needed. It is yet another missed opportunity by this neo-Conservative government. Unfortunately, Bill C-5 was reported back to the House of Commons with only a few technical amendments which correct inaccurate wording in a number of clauses.

It was also very unfortunate, in my view, that the Conservatives on the committee would not support efforts to provide greater clarity on the word “danger” in the act. That word is particularly important, and the meaning of it is particularly important in this kind of legislation.

Under this legislation, certain terms such as “danger” are not defined in this bill. They remain to be defined by federal regulation on the recommendation of the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Labour, and with the approval of provincial ministers.

In committee, I introduced a proposed amendment calling for consultations with the provinces and key stakeholders on the definition of “dangerous work”, something that we have heard is important. I felt it would coincide with the testimony we heard in committee about the importance of consulting on this question of the word “danger”. That is critical for all parts of the offshore oil and gas industry, and the men and women who work in our offshore.

While this legislation does push the yardsticks and while it is a move in the right direction, it could have been better. It could have been strengthened. It should have been amended. As legislators, that is our job. It is our job not only to examine these carefully, to look for ways to improve them, but also to hear the evidence, hear the experts, and reflect on that expert evidence and testimony and make the appropriate changes. We are not simply here to do whatever the kids in short pants in the Prime Minister's Office tell us or order the Conservatives to do.

We are often asked to strike a careful balance between economic success in the oil and gas sector, the rights of employees and, of course, environmental concerns. Bill C-5 is one of the many tools to achieve this balance, and I believe the Canadian Parliament, including members in the House of Commons, ought to strive to set an example to the rest of the world by clearly indicating that we value human capital at least as much as the wealth we derive from our natural resources. That is why the Liberal Party has supported this bill.

Bill C-5 will effectively solve the issue of jurisdiction surrounding occupational health and safety in Canada's offshore oil and gas industry. It was not clear until now—which became very clear after the terrible helicopter accident off Newfoundland when it was unclear which level of government had responsibility and jurisdiction. This will solve that issue and that is important. That is an important step forward, which has taken over 10 years to realize.

The legislation would also create a streamlined process for rectifying health and safety issues and to assign responsibility. That is important because we do not want to have any doubt about jurisdiction if there is an accident in the offshore. An issue of the utmost importance is our capacity to respond to an accident or spill in the offshore. However, that is a debate for another day, and I hope we will have opportunities to do that.

This legislation is focused on the right to a safe workplace. It is an important right and a right that all Canadians must enjoy. Many of us as Canadians, and certainly those of us as members of Parliament, have a very safe work environment and are very fortunate in the kind of work we do. For the most part, it is indoor work and a lot of it is desk work or standing up work, but it sure is not in conditions some workers across this country face, by any means.

If we think of working outside on a cold day like this, or of the folks in Atlantic Canada—and I look across to my colleagues from New Brunswick and consider our families back home and other families in Atlantic Canada, digging out from a terrible storm and still experiencing terrible wind, some of them without power, and consider the folks from the power companies and snowplow drivers and others out there who are working to get things back to normal—we should feel pretty fortunate to be working in a place like this with the kind of jobs that we have.

Though a safe workplace is not the reality for all Canadians, governments have worked with stakeholder groups in the past to improve conditions faced by Canadians in their places of employment.

That, obviously, is incredibly important work. Bill C-5 is an example of these efforts—in this case, the joint efforts of the provincial and federal levels working together, which does not happen often enough. Indeed, this government is not known for working with provincial governments. However, it is our collective responsibility, whether as a legislative body, employers or employees, or society as a whole, to ensure that the right to a safe work environment is respected.

It is absolutely vital. The conditions for employees on offshore drilling projects should be comparable to those on land-based projects. There is no question that a drilling rig, whether offshore or onshore, can be a very dangerous environment.

I think employees and their families can be confident that what is proposed in Bill C-5, as far as it goes, would improve the health and safety regimes of our offshore oil and gas projects. However, members of my party believe we still need to ensure that the separation of health and safety concerns from those of production and economic viability occur. Justice Wells made that very clear in much more eloquent language than I.

We recognize that these two issues are very different things, but one trumps the other, and health and safety comes first. We need to make sure that, when necessary, those health and safety concerns are paramount, as they ought to be.

Bill C-5 should guarantee that the proposed chief safety officer has powerful methods of inquiry to hold operators to account. A regime of self-regulation, in our view, would be insufficient. I have already said that we do not think the chief safety officer approach is necessarily ideal. There are other things that Commissioner Wells recommended, but since that is what we are going with, let us try to make it as strong as possible.

The chief safety officer must not be influenced in decision-making by concerns of economic viability or by political pressure, which should be obvious. This individual must be a champion of a healthy and safe environment for all employees who work in our offshore oil and gas industry, or in any of those kinds of projects.

Bill C-5 has survived changes in governing parties at both the federal and provincial levels. It has received clear provincial support, and legislatures in both Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador have given the bill's mirror legislation assent, in short order. By supporting Bill C-5, we have the opportunity to improve upon legislation that has already met some of the concerns of the provinces.

If we take into account all the elements of employee health and safety, the original offshore accords, and Bill C-5 itself in those bills, this could provide the model for future negotiations between the federal government and other provinces, like Quebec for example, that are looking to develop their oil and gas sectors.

Let me conclude by noting that while Bill C-5 is a step forward, we should recognize that more work needs to be done. Hopefully, we will not have to wait another decade for that to occur.

It is not new to Canadians that our country places great economic importance on the development of natural resources. Forest products, natural gas, hydro electricity, and oil and gas are cornerstones of our export market and contribute immensely to the creation of jobs, which, of course, we believe is very important. We want Canadians to have a good quality of life that comes with jobs and opportunity. However, let us make sure that those resources are developed in a responsible and sustainable way. Let us recognize that occupational health and safety must be paramount.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. member for his comments on this very important piece of legislation.

I would like to reinforce the points that the member has made, in that both provinces have already given royal assent to their respective bills to enact these changes. They have been waiting patiently for Bill C-5 to pass through our Parliament for the new regime to come into force.

I want to confirm what I thought I heard the member say, that he and his colleagues will definitely allow for this legislation to finally come into force so that workers will not have to spend another day without these safety measures that Bill C-5 would bring.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for her question. However, as she heard from my speech, I do have some concerns about amendments that were not adopted by the committee and were not supported by her party.

As I said, we think this legislation is important because it is a step in the right direction. It moves the ball forward, even if it is not as good as we would like. Therefore, we are supporting the bill. We do not have any intention to slow it down.

I should point out, of course, that the Conservative government certainly has the means to move legislation faster than it has moved this legislation. Not a week has gone by, that I can recall, in which we have not seen at least one motion of time allocation or closure by the Conservative government. I do not know if it has used it 7,000 times, but I know it is well over 50, even by last fall. The Conservatives have used these measures far more than any other government in the history of this country. For them to talk about bills not moving fast enough is a little rich, but I appreciate the question.