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.

Transitional Regulations

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I have another opportunity. Thank you.

Pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, two copies of the transitional regulations referenced in clauses 53 and 92 of Bill C-5, our offshore safety and health legislation, namely the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Marine Installations and Structures Occupational Health and Safety Transitional Regulations; the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Marine Installations and Structures Transitional Regulations; the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area Diving Operations Safety Transitional Regulations; the Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Marine Installations and Structures Occupational Health and Safety Transitional Regulations; the Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Marine Installations and Structures Transitional Regulations; and, the Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Area Diving Operations Safety Transitional Regulations.

Energy Safety and Security Act

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-22.

We recommend supporting the bill in principle at second reading and calling for greater liability and global best practices. Our position at third reading will depend on the government's response.

This bill warrants further study in committee to see whether it can be improved. It will be hard to sit down with the Conservatives and improve a bill because they think they have all the answers. We know how that goes. We have seen it before.

Bill C-22 updates the Canadian nuclear liability regime and sets out the victim compensation procedures and conditions in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant. It maintains the principles whereby operators have limited, exclusive, no-fault absolute nuclear liability, except in the event of war or terrorist attacks.

The bill increases the limit of absolute liability from $75 million to $1 billion. It extends the deadline for filing compensation claims for bodily injury from 10 years to 30 years to address latent illnesses. The 10-year deadline is maintained for all other types of damage.

The changes in terms of nuclear liability apply to Canadian nuclear facilities such as nuclear power plants, research reactors, fuel processing plants and facilities for managing used nuclear fuel.

Bill C-22 also updates the offshore regime for oil and gas operations, in order to prevent incidents and to guarantee a rapid response in the event of a spill. It keeps the idea of an operator's unlimited liability in cases of demonstrated fault or negligence. It raises the absolute limit of liability for offshore oil and gas exploration projects and sets it at $1 billion, without proof of fault. The current limit is $40 million in Arctic waters and $30 million in the Atlantic. The bill explicitly mentions the polluter pays principle and clearly and officially establishes that polluters will be held responsible.

The bill strengthens the current liability regime, but it does nothing to protect the environment, or Canadian taxpayers, because it still exposes them to risks.

The Conservatives are constantly behind our international partners and they ignore best practices when it is a matter of recognizing the dangers of an inadequate liability regime.

We have already expressed our opposition to the inadequate limits in the matter of nuclear liability. The provisions must be considered a step in the right direction in terms of the current limits, but this bill does not adequately consider the real dangers that Canadians are facing. We hope that we will be able to deal with this point in committee, if the Conservatives let us work in committee, as I was saying.

Only the NDP takes the protection of Canadians' interests seriously, while the other parties take a cavalier attitude to nuclear safety and the safety of offshore oil and gas operations.

If the nuclear energy industry is a mature one, it must pay its way. This bill continues to subsidize the industry by making taxpayers assume any financial risk in excess of $1 billion.

Taxpayers should not have to subsidize the nuclear industry instead of subsidizing other sources of renewable energy. Other countries feel that their citizens deserve better protection in the case of a nuclear accident.

Bill C-22 has come before the House before. It was then Bill C-5, which went through the committee stage and was passed at report stage in 2008. However, it died on the Order Paper when the Prime Minister called an election, ignoring the fact that it was supposed to be held on a fixed date.

Bill C-20 made it through second reading to committee stage in 2009, but it died on the order paper when the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. Bill C-15 was introduced in 2010 and then nothing happened for a year, until the 2011 election. This government claims that this is an important bill. Now, we have to sit until midnight until the end of June because the government says this bill is important, even though we have been talking about the same bill since 2008. All of a sudden this bill is important to the Conservatives.

The latest version of the bill does not give the public the protection it needs. Its biggest flaw is that it puts an artificial $1 billion limit on liability, even though the costs of a serious accident can be much higher than that. Taxpayers will be stuck paying for the remaining cleanup and compensation costs. In reality, the $1 billion limit is not enough, and imposing an artificial ceiling amounts to subsidizing energy corporations, since they will not have to cover the full costs of the risks associated with what they do.

I want to share some figures. The figure of $1 billion for liability may seem like a lot, but it is an insufficient, arbitrary amount if we consider the costs of cleaning up nuclear disasters and marine oil spills, which have happened in the past.

In Germany, for example, nuclear liability is unlimited, fault or no fault. Germany also has financial security of $3.3 billion Canadian per power plant. The United States has set an absolute liability limit of $12.6 billion U.S. Other countries tend toward unlimited absolute liability.

A nuclear liability limit of $1 billion would not have covered a fraction of the costs of the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The Government of Japan estimates the cleanup costs at more than $250 billion.

The government still brags about saving money for taxpayers and giving them a break. This same government is prepared to protect major corporations by setting the limit at $1 billion. However, we have seen that the disasters in other countries have cost more than $1 billion. When a disaster happens, someone has to pay. Why should Canadian taxpayers have to foot the bill for a disaster?

The NDP says that amendments will have to be put forward in committee to improve this bill. We are not against this bill, but we have to protect Canadians, who pay enough taxes already. That money is supposed to cover their own needs. The government is cutting funding for health care and all kinds of other things. Our roads are full of potholes. Everyone is mad because the government is not investing enough money in programs that people need.

The government is ready to let oil and nuclear companies get away with one heck of a deal. Their insurance should cover those costs. We cannot let them get away with not paying for insurance or paying only half as much as they should. If we do, and if a disaster happens, they will declare bankruptcy, and taxpayers will be on the hook for the bill. We have seen companies do that. As soon as the price gets too high, they declare bankruptcy. They should be the ones paying. They believe in the industry because it is profitable, so they should set money aside for possible disasters. Canadians are not the ones who should foot the bill, but that is exactly what they have to do.

The 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could cost the company $42 billion to clean up. The company has been sued, and there will be criminal penalties.

Is Canada ready to foot the bill for these companies? My answer is no.

Bill C-22 does not go far enough. We will recommend changing the numbers.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 20, 2014:

(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 midnight, except that it shall be 10 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;

(b) subject to paragraph (d), when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday;

(c) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1);

(d) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is demanded, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(e) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(f) a recorded division demanded in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b);

(g) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7);

(h) no dilatory motion may be proposed, except by a Minister of the Crown, after 6:30 p.m.; and

(i) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the twentieth sitting day after the interruption.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the government's motion proposing that we work a little bit of overtime over the next few weeks in the House.

I have the pleasure of serving in my fourth year as the government House leader during the 41st Parliament. That is, of course, on top of another 22 months during a previous Parliament, though some days it feels like I am just getting started since our government continues to implement an ambitious agenda that focuses on the priorities of Canadians. We still have much to do, and that is the basis for Motion No. 10, which we are debating today. Regardless of what other theories that folks might come up with, our objective is simple: to deliver results for Canadians, results on things Canadians want to see from their government.

As government House leader, I have worked to have the House operate in a productive, orderly, and hard-working fashion. Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf. We agree, and that is exactly what has happened here in the House of Commons. However, do not take my word for it. Let us look at the facts.

In the previous session of the 41st Parliament, 61 government bills received royal assent and are now law. In 2013 alone, which was a shorter parliamentary year than normal, the government had a record-breaking year with 40 bills becoming law, more than any other calendar year since we took office, breaking our previous record of 37 new laws in 2007 when I also had the honour to be the leader of the House. That is the record of a hard-working, orderly, and productive Parliament. With more than a year left in this Parliament, the House has accomplished so much already, handing many bills over to the Senate for the final steps in the legislative process.

Just as we had a record year for legislative output, Canadian grain farmers experienced a bumper crop with a record yield in 2013. Understanding the real challenges faced by grain farmers, our government acted quickly on Bill C-30, the fair rail for grain farmers act, moving the bill through three readings and a committee study before handing it over to the Senate. This bill would support economic growth by ensuring that grain is able to get to market quickly and efficiently. The House also passed Bill C-23, the fair elections act, which would ensure that everyday citizens are in charge of democracy, ensuring the integrity of our electoral system and putting rule breakers out of business.

Two supply bills received royal assent, thereby ensuring that the government has the money it needs to continue providing services to the people.

When we passed Bill C-25, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act, we fulfilled our promise to protect the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation's enrolment process, making it fair and equitable while ensuring that only eligible individuals will be granted membership.

Earlier this spring, royal assent was also given to Bill C-16, the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation Governance Act, making the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation the first self-governing nation on the prairies and the 34th aboriginal community in Canada to achieve self-governance.

Next on the agenda is Bill C-34, the Tla'amin Final Agreement Act, which will implement the agreement with the Tla'amin Nation. Bill C-34 will give the Tla'amin increased control over their own affairs. They will have ownership of their land and resources and will be able to create new investment opportunities and make decisions determining their economic future.

We considered and passed through all stages of Bill C-5, the Offshore Health and Safety Act, which will enhance safety standards for workers in Canada’s Atlantic offshore oil and gas industry to protect Canadians and the environment while supporting jobs and growth.

Bill C-14, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, became law just a few weeks ago. This act will ensure that public safety should be the paramount consideration in the decision-making process involving high-risk accused found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

Also, this spring, our government passed Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act, which honoured our government's commitment to giving northerners greater control over their resources and decision-making and completing devolution all before the agreed-upon implementation date of April 1, as well as Bill C-9, the First Nations Elections Act, which supports the Government of Canada's commitment to provide all Canadians with strong, accountable, and transparent government. Bill C-9 provides a robust election framework, improves the capacity of first nations to select leadership, build prosperous communities, and improve economic development in their communities.

However, despite these many accomplishments, there is more work to be done yet before we return to our constituencies for the summer, let alone before we seek the privilege of representing our constituents in the 42nd Parliament.

During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity.

It is worth saying that again. During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth, and long-term prosperity. That continues. Through three years and four budgets since the 2012 budget, we have passed initiatives that have helped create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Canadians, as part of the one million net new jobs since the global economic downturn. We have achieved this record while also ensuring that Canada's debt burden is the lowest in the G7 and we are on track to balance the budget in 2015.

As part of our efforts to build on this strong track record, our government has put forward this motion today. Motion No. 10 is simple. It is straightforward. It would extend the hours of the House to sit from Monday through Thursday. Instead of finishing the day around 6:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., the House would, instead, sit until midnight. This would give us an additional 20 hours each week to debate important bills. Of course, the hours on Friday would not change.

Extended sitting hours is something that happens practically every June. Our government just wants to roll up its sleeves and work a little harder a bit earlier this year.

Productivity is not just a function of time invested, but also of efficiency. To that end, our motion would allow most votes to be deferred, automatically, until the end of question period to allow for all hon. members' schedules to be a bit more orderly.

Last year, we saw the New Democrats profess to be willing to work hard. Then, mere hours later, after the sun would go down and people were not watching, what would the NDP do? It would suggest we pack it in early and move adjournment, without any accomplishment to show for it.

In order to keep our focus on delivering results and not gamesmanship, we are suggesting that we use our extra evening hours to get something done, not to play idle, unproductive games. We are interested in working hard and being productive, and doing so in an orderly fashion. That is the extent of what Motion No. 10 would do. Members on this side of the House are willing to work a few extra hours to deliver real results for Canadians. What results are we seeking? Bills on which we want to see progress, that are of great significance to Canadians, are worth spending a little extra time to see them considered and, ideally, passed.

Of course, we have the important matter of passing Bill C-31, Economic Action Plan 2014, No. 1. This bill implements our government’s budget—a low tax plan for jobs, growth and a stronger Canadian economy. It is also an essential tool in placing the government on track to balanced budgets, starting in 2015.

We have a number of bills that continue to build on the work we have done in support of victims of crime. Bill C-13, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, is another essential piece of legislation that will crack down on cyberbullies and online threats by giving law enforcement officials the tools necessary to investigate and tackle these crimes. We are taking clear action to combat cyberbullying and I ask the opposition to join us in this pursuit.

Every day in Canada, our most vulnerable—our children—are the victims of sexual abuse. This is truly unacceptable and as a society we must do our part to better protect our youth. With Bill C-26, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, we are doing our part.

Our government's comprehensive legislation will better protect children from a range of sexual offences, including child pornography, while making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on the predators who hurt, abuse, and exploit our children.

Therefore, I ask the opposition to work with us, support this important piece of legislation by supporting this motion.

It is also important that we move forward with one of the most recent additions to our roster of other tackling crime legislation. Last month, we introduced Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, which will give victims of crime a more efficient and more effective voice in the criminal justice system. It seeks to create clear statutory rights at the federal level for victims of crime, for the first time in Canada's history. The legislation would establish rights to information, protection, participation, and restitution, and ensure a complaint process is in place for breaches of those rights on the part of victims. It would protect victims, and help to rebalance the justice system to give victims their rightful place. I hope we can debate this bill tomorrow night. By passing Motion No. 10, we will make that possible.

Our efforts to protect families and communities also extend to keeping contraband tobacco off our streets, so that the cheap baggies of illegal cigarettes do not lure children into the dangers of smoking. Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, would combat this by establishing mandatory jail time for repeat offenders trafficking in contraband. Aside from protecting Canadian children from the health hazards of smoking, it will also address the more general problems with trafficking and contraband tobacco propelled by organized crime roots. With luck, I hope we can pass this bill on Friday.

Just before the constituency week, the Prime Minister announced Quanto's law. Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act, would pose stiffer penalties on anyone who kills or injures a law enforcement, military, or service animal. I know that the hon. member for Richmond Hill, having previously introduced a private member's bill on the subject, will be keen to see the extra time used to debate and pass this bill at second reading before we head back to our constituencies.

Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act, could also have a chance for some debate time if we pass Motion No. 10. This particular bill will tackle drug use and trade in the federal penitentiaries to make the correctional system a safer place, particularly for staff, but also for inmates, while also increasing the potential for success and rehabilitation of those inmates. As a former public safety minister, I can say that this is indeed an important initiative.

Delivering these results for Canadians is worth working a few extra hours each week. Our clear and steady focus on the strength of our Canadian economy does not simply apply to our budgets. We will also work hard next week to bring the Canada-Honduras free trade agreement into law. Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, would enhance provisions on cross-border trading services, investment, and government procurement between our two countries. It would also immediately benefit key sectors in the Canadian economy, by providing enhanced market access for beef, pork, potato products, vegetable oils, and grain products.

As a former trade minister, I can say first-hand that this government understands that trade and investment are the twin engines of the global economy that lead to more growth, the creation of good jobs, and greater prosperity. Trade is particularly important for a country like Canada, one that is relatively small yet stands tall in terms of its relationship and ability to export and trade with the rest of the world. If we are to enjoy that prosperity in the future, it is only through expanding free trade and seizing those opportunities that we can look forward to that kind of long-term prosperity.

Through Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act, we are providing further support to Canada's agriculture producers. This bill would modernize nine statues that regulate Canada's agriculture sector to bring them in line with modern science and technology, innovation, and international practices within the agriculture industry. The act will strengthen and safeguard Canada's agriculture sector by providing farmers with greater access to new crop varieties, enhancing both trade opportunities and the safety of agriculture products, and contributing to Canada's overall economic growth.

As the House knows, our government has made the interests of farmers a very important priority. We recognize that since Canada was born, our farmers in our agriculture sector have been key to Canada's economic success. As a result, Bill C-18 will be debated this afternoon. It would be nice to have the bill passed at second reading before the summer, so that the agriculture committee can harvest stakeholder opinion this autumn.

Over the next few weeks, with the co-operation and support of the opposition parties, we will hopefully work to make progress on other important initiatives.

My good friend, the President of the Treasury Board, will be happy to know that these extra hours would mean that I can find some time to debate Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act. This important bill should not be underestimated. It would enshrine into law our government's one-for-one rule, a successful system-wide control on regulatory red tape that affects Canadian employers. Treasury Board already takes seriously the practice of opining that rule, but we want to heighten its importance and ensure that it is binding on governments in the future. We want to ensure that Canadians do not face unreasonable red tape when they are simply trying to make a better living for themselves, and creating jobs and economic growth in their communities.

Another important government initiative sets out to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. For the first time in more than 35 years, our government is taking action to update the Citizenship Act. Through Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, we are proposing stronger rules around access to Canadian citizenship to underline its true value and ensure that new Canadians are better prepared for full participation in Canadian life. This legislation will be called for debate on Wednesday.

The health and safety of Canadians is something that our government believes is worthy of some extra time and further hard work in the House of Commons.

Tomorrow evening, we will debate Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act. Under Vanessa's law, as we have called it, we are proposing steps to protect Canadian families and children from unsafe medicines. Among other actions, the bill would enable the government to recall unsafe drugs, require stronger surveillance, provide the courts with discretion to impose stronger fines if violations were intentionally caused, and compel drug companies to do further testing on a product. In general, the bill would make sure that the interests of individual Canadians are looked out for and become a major priority when it comes to dealing with new medications and drugs.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, would modernize safety and security for Canada's offshore and nuclear energy industries, thereby ensuring a world-class regulatory system, and strengthening safety and environmental protections. This legislation, at second reading, will be debated on Thursday.

Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act, could pass at third reading under the extended hours, so that we can secure these important updates and improvements to transportation law in Canada.

We could also pass the prohibiting cluster munitions act. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs explained at committee, the Government of Canada is committed to ridding the world of cluster munitions. Bill C-6 is an important step in that direction, but it is just the beginning of our work. Extending the relevant elements of the Oslo Convention into domestic law would allow Canada to join the growing list of countries that share that same goal. I hope members of all parties will support us in this worthy objective.

By supporting today's motion, the opposition would also be showing support for Canada's veterans. The extra hours would allow us to make progress on Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act. The measures included in this legislation would create new opportunities for men and women who have served their country to continue working for Canadians through the federal public service. As a nation, we have a responsibility to ensure that veterans have access to a broad range of programs and services to help them achieve new success after their time in uniform is complete. This initiative would do exactly that.

Of course, a quick reading of today's order paper would show that there are still more bills before the House of Commons for consideration and passage. I could go on and on, literally, since I have unlimited time to speak this afternoon, but I will not. Suffice it to say that we have a bold, ambitious, and important legislative agenda to implement. All of these measures are important, and they will improve the lives of Canadians. Each merits consideration and hard work on our part. Canadians expect each one of us to come to Ottawa to work hard, to vote on bills, to make decisions, and to get things done on their behalf.

I hope that opposition parties will be willing to support this reasonable plan and let it come to a vote. I am sure that members opposite would not be interested in going back to their constituents to say that they voted against working a little overtime before the House rises for the summer.

I commend this motion to the House and encourage all hon. members to vote for adding a few hours to our day to continue the work of our productive, orderly, and hard-working Parliament, and deliver real results for Canadians.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-5.

The House resumed from May 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[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.

[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.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.

I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-5, an act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and other related acts. The bill has been a long time coming. It is a positive and necessary step forward to improve worker safety in the oil and gas industry in general.

My mind drifts back to the Ocean Ranger disaster. When I was a teenager living on South Mountain in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, we did not have a TV, but my family was glued to the radio listening to reports of that tragedy on February 1984. There were 84 lives lost and no survivors. I know that the Ocean Ranger tragedy really prompted a hard look at how we regulate the oil and gas industry, especially offshore, but increasingly closer to shore.

For me, the Ocean Ranger tragedy was a dramatic coming of age event that really forged my first thoughts about what government does. It really helped a lot of Canadians make a connection between worker safety, the oil industry, and the importance of what government can do to make sure it protects workers and the public. This kind of tragedy cannot happen again.

I am glad we can support the bill and the work of the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia governments in putting this in place. I feel that the bill would go some way to improving safety for those who work in the oil industry and would make sure that we never again have a similar disaster.

The bill also shows what can be achieved when the federal and provincial governments work together to further the public good, something that happens all too infrequently under this government. In fact, I know that the government often refuses to talk to provincial governments about matters of such importance. However, in this case, it has been prompted to act.

I would like to expand my speech a little to comment on the attitudes of some of the companies involved in this industry, why this legislation may not go far enough, and why we need to improve or have even better regulation of the oil and gas industry in Canada in general.

Because I am from the west coast, representing the beautiful riding of Burnaby—Douglas, the examples I am going to use are from the west coast.

While Bill C-5 would increase safety in the oil and gas industry on the east coast, there is still much work to do on the west coast. As we know, two companies have applied to build two massive new pipelines through British Columbia. They are Enbridge and Kinder Morgan. These two companies plan to move almost two million barrels per day of bitumen-based crude oil by tanker through B.C. waters to foreign ports. This would mean approximately 600 new supertankers off the B.C. coast, with no extra protection.

The biggest oil port in the world is in Saudi Arabia. It moves about nine million barrels a day of oil. In combination, if Kitimat and Burnaby ports were to be expanded, we would be close to two million barrels a day of oil, which would move us within the top 10 exporting regions in the world, which is a sizeable expansion of our exports. In fact, although we are considering these new pipelines and an expansion of tanker traffic, the government is really going in the opposite direction of what it should be doing, and instead of improving safety measures on the west coast, it is putting British Columbians at risk.

For example, the Conservatives closed the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in February 2013, which was the busiest coast guard station in the country. The government also closed the Port of Vancouver monitoring centre, which provided eyes on port traffic. When we think we are going to be increasing oil tanker traffic to the extent the government seeks to do, this really seems to be going in the opposite direction.

Instead of closing coast guard bases, one would think we would be opening new ones, and instead of closing monitoring stations, one would think we would be expanding those facilities. Instead, we have gone in the opposite direction, making tanker traffic less safe on the B.C. coast rather than making it more safe. Actions such as closing these facilities cannot do anything but weaken safety on the west coast. It really seems absurd, considering that companies are proposing to move millions of barrels of oil by tanker.

These two pipeline projects are of course highly contentious and vehemently opposed by local communities, including the cities of Kitimat, Burnaby, and Vancouver and many other municipalities up and down the coast. Over 130 first nations have signed an accord against the two pipelines, citing safety as one of their main concerns.

It would appear that the only supporters of these pipelines are the Conservatives, who have stated on a number of occasions that they want to put in these pipelines, ram them through British Columbia.

The Liberal leader, on February 9, in the Calgary edition of Metro, stated:

I am...very interested in the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the Trans Mountain pipeline that is making its way through. I certainly hope that we’re going to be able to get that pipeline approved.

Here in the House, both the Liberals and the Conservatives are in overwhelming favour of these pipelines, where most British Columbians have huge concerns. Most of these concerns are related to the safety issues, impacts on the environment, worker safety, and public safety in general.

New regulations are put in place because oftentimes the companies will try to get away with as much as they can, and it is up to governments to make sure that they are safe.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-5. This bill addresses long-standing gaps in occupational health and safety standards in Atlantic offshore oil and gas development.

The bill amends the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord in order to enshrine the occupational health and safety regime in law. This is an important measure that the NDP has long been calling for. This is a very important bill for workers who do dangerous work in Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore.

Not so long ago, these activities took place in shallow water close to shore. Now, we have oil rigs hundreds of kilometres from shore. It takes two to three hours to get to the rigs and back by helicopter. The work is done in extreme weather. It goes without saying that it is dangerous. These brave workers do this work to support themselves and their families. However, this sector also benefits Atlantic Canada's economy and the federal government.

As usual, bills like this come about after tragedy strikes. In this case, I am referring to the Ocean Ranger drilling platform, which sank off the shore of Newfoundland in 1982, taking 84 workers with it.

The royal commission that followed criticized the industry for problems with safety training and being lax with inspections. People believed that the government had implemented regulations to reduce risk. However, the offshore was never subject to provincial safety regulations.

There is a clear link between this tragedy and the one that occurred recently in Lac-Mégantic.

Prioritizing profit, the government let a company self-regulate. That decision led to tragedy, and the government betrayed the people's trust yet again.

Let us not forget the Deepwater Horizon. In 2010, neglect resulted in the death of 11 workers and the worst offshore oil spill in history. The Gulf of Mexico is still suffering the consequences of that incident.

In other words, we cannot pretend that will never happen again. The government must make laws. The NDP supports the federal-provincial collaboration that resulted in Bill C-5.

Bill C-5 is the outcome of over a decade of negotiation that began in 2001 between the federal government and the governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

However, I am disappointed that the Conservative government does not work with the provincial and territorial governments on other issues often enough. I am also disappointed that my colleagues opposite still seem to cling to a laissez-faire ideology that benefits corporations but puts our communities and the environment at risk.

Regulation in the offshore oil industry focuses on performance. In other words, the regulatory body drafts a plan and sets safety objectives, and companies decide how to go about achieving those objectives.

In contrast, the regulatory regime set out in Bill C-5 dictates both the standards and the means to achieve them. Compliance is mandatory. That is why I support this bill.

The New Democrats have been calling for this kind of power for years. However, the bill does not act on recommendation 29 of the Honourable Robert Wells' offshore helicopter safety inquiry. That inquiry was held after a helicopter crash that, as we all know, killed 17 workers.

The Wells report contained a number of recommendations, including the creation of an independent safety regulator. Bill C-5 does not provide for the creation of an independent and stand-alone safety regulator, nor does it provide for autonomous safety divisions within the petroleum boards.

It is disappointing that the Government of Canada did not act on this report even though Newfoundland, Justice Wells, the unions concerned, the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour and many other stakeholders concerned about the offshore health and safety regime urged it to do so.

Thus, the NDP's efforts to ensure that the bill is reviewed in five years were rejected by the government at committee stage. An NDP federal government would work with the provinces to establish these measures in order to further strengthen the health and safety regime for Atlantic offshore workers.

Nevertheless, we will support Bill C-5 because it should have been passed a long time ago and it is an important victory for the labour movement. The NDP has been calling for a legislated offshore safety regime for years. Bill C-5 protects offshore workers at least as well as onshore workers. It also protects employees' right to refuse to work in dangerous conditions and to be protected from reprisals.

This bill is timely. In fact, Shell and BP are exploring along the Nova Scotia coast for the first time since the Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010. However, it is unfortunate that the federal government prevented the implementation of even better protection for worker safety by not creating a stand-alone safety regulator. The NDP is determined to work with the provinces to that end.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi.

I am pleased to speak on behalf of Bill C-5 and to offer our party's support at report stage for the bill. Bill C-5 addresses long-standing gaps in legislation and regulation making powers associated with occupational health and safety standards and their enforcement, in this case particularly with respect to Atlantic offshore oil development.

The bill would amend the Atlantic accord to place the health and occupation safety regimes into legislation. We feel that this is an important step forward. The New Democratic Party has called for this in all relevant jurisdictions across our country.

It is important to point out, however, that the bill is not compliant with recommendation 29 of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador public inquiry into the offshore helicopter safety inquiry that was conducted by the Hon. Robert Wells. This followed in the aftermath of the tragedy so well known to Canadians. It involved the deaths of offshore oil workers on the Atlantic coast.

Bill C-5 also does not provide for either an independent stand-alone safety regulator or an autonomous safety division within the petroleum boards. New Democrat efforts to provide for a review of the bill in five years, which could reopen the possibility of these measures, including an independent offshore regulator which we believe is essential, were voted down by the government at committee stage, and that is regrettable.

A New Democrat federal government would work with the provinces to put forward such measures to further strengthen the health and safety regime for Atlantic offshore workers and, in fact, for all workers across the country from coast to coast to coast.

Nevertheless, we will support the bill at this stage as it is well past due and an important victory for workers and the labour movement that were instrumental in pushing this issue forward. Both provinces and both provincial New Democratic parties have also been advocating for legislative offshore safety regimes for many years.

By way of background, Bill C-5 is the culmination of over 12 years of negotiations, starting in 2001 between the federal government and the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The proposed amendments to the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act aim to strengthen offshore health and safety practices in the oil and gas industry.

Bill C-5 seeks to fill a legislative gap created by the 1992 amendments to the Atlantic accord that separated health and safety issues, resulting in the provincial offshore petroleum regulatory agencies effectively enforcing health and safety issues contained in draft regulations.

The bill would put existing practices into legislation by placing authority and fundamental principles of occupational health and safety within the accord acts themselves. We believe this is an important improvement to the offshore occupational health and safety regimes that the NDP has called for in all relevant jurisdictions.

The bill would also establish a framework that would clarify the individual and shared roles and responsibilities of the federal government, provincial governments, regulators, operators, employers, suppliers and employees, the co-operation of which we believe is fundamental to improving occupational health and safety in our country.

The bill is based on three basic principles: first, that offshore occupational health and safety laws much provide workers with protection at least as good as those which exist for onshore workers; second, the protection of employee rights, the right to know, the right to participate, the right to refuse unsafe work and the right to be protected from reprisals; and third, support for an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes the shared responsibilities of the workplace.

Essentially the bill engages the issue of occupational health and safety, the standards that should be applied to the enforcement mechanisms that are so important.

Before I was elected, I worked for a trade union for 16 years and saw the essential work that trade unions did across the country in representing and empowering workers and in advocating for stronger health and safety protection for workers in all occupations. As legislators, it is our duty to respond to that by ensuring that Canadian workers in every industry have the highest standards in the world and have meaningful, effective enforcement of those standards, because standards without enforcement are meaningless.

A few weeks ago, on April 28, workers across British Columbia and Canada marked Workers Memorial Day. This is a worldwide day, an international day of remembrance and action for workers killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work. This day highlights the preventable nature of many, in fact, most workplace accidents and ill health.

This day was started by the Canadian Union of Public Employees in 1984. In 1985, the Canadian Labour Congress declared an annual day of remembrance. In 1991, the House, because of New Democrat initiatives, passed an act respecting a national day of mourning for persons killed or injured on the job, making April 28 an official day of mourning across this country.

Speaking of the Canadian Labour Congress, it appears today that we have a new president of the CLC. I would like to personally congratulate Hassan Yousef on assuming the presidency of that organization. I wish him well and I know he will do a wonderful job in carrying on the fine work done by previous presidents, including President Ken Georgetti.

Tomorrow we will be honouring Afghanistan War veterans on this Hill and they, in many respects, are workers as well. They are people who, through their occupation, put their health, lives and wellness on the line for Canadians every day. They pay for their commitment sometimes with their injuries, illnesses and their lives, and it is not always physical. The psychological illnesses that are so well known through the trauma that our men and women in uniform are subjected to is something we will have a chance form coast to coast to honour tomorrow.

I would include our veterans, the heroes of our country, in the great pantheon of workers who ought to be covered and protected by this chamber, and every legislature across the country, to ensure that no workplace injury, illness or death is tolerable if we can prevent it.

There are a couple of people I would like to mention in British Columbia whose efforts over the years for occupational health and safety deserve mention in the House.

First, Jim Sinclair, president of the British Columbia Federation of Labour, has for decades championed the need for us to ensure that workers' health and safety on the job is protected.

Second, Tom Sigurdson, president of the British Columbia Building Trades, has also spent a lifetime both politically and in the labour movement to ensure that workers who get up in the morning and go to work have the right and expectation that at the end of their shifts they will come back to their homes and families.

This bill is symbolic of that as we seek to strengthen the health and protection of workers in the offshore oil industry.

Now, we do not have an offshore oil industry so much on the west coast, but we have a lot of workers off the coast of British Columbia. I hope the bill will serve as a template and reminder for all members of the House, including every member of Parliament from British Columbia, to ensure that we focus on the health and safety of those workers who go out on the Pacific Ocean and put their lives, health and safety at risk every day in order to feed their families and contribute to their communities and our economy.

We hear a lot about the needs of our economy and the need to ensure that we have a strong business climate. That is a particular priority of the government, which is laudable. However, we must also remember that no business and no economy runs without the labour and contributions of the workers who go to work every day and help to create the wealth, products and services that make those businesses profitable.

The New Democratic Party stands in contrast to the Conservatives because we believe that a balance between the interests of business and the interests of labour are not only an ethical and moral imperative, but the performance of our economy depends completely on achieving that right balance.

An economic approach that places the interests of business above and ignores the interests of workers is a policy that I believe will result in inefficient economic performance, and I think we are seeing that. Time and time again, I see examples where the government involves consultation of the business community. We saw that recently with the global market action plan when the Conservative government consulted over 400 stakeholders, not one of which represented a labour or work organization. It is this kind of lack of balance that is responsible for Canada's economy underperforming.

In 2015, Canadians will have an opportunity to select a different approach, an approach championed by the New Democratic Party which understands that a strong business sector, a strong labour sector and a strong government working together will create the most powerful and productive economy. That is what Canadians can look forward to in 2015.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague.

We congratulated all the governments and entities that contributed to the development of Bill C-5. As the New Democrats have mentioned, we are disappointed that the government did not agree to our proposal to review the implementation of the bill every five years. As we know, the Conservative government does not proactively support facts or science. Unfortunately, we are seeing the same thing with this bill.

A review of the bill would ensure that workers are protected and that the bill is working. In five years, we could strengthen and improve the bill. Unfortunately, the Conservative government did not want to do that. However, the NDP will continue to call for such action.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-5, 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.

I am pleased to speak alongside my colleagues in the NDP in the House on this important bill, a bill that New Democrats support. We want to particularly recognize the hard work that was done by provinces in conjunction with the federal government to establish this bill. We want to note that despite the federal government's refusal to implement recommendation no. 29 of the Wells Inquiry, Bill C-5 makes a positive and necessary improvement to the current offshore health and safety regime by placing safety practices into legislation.

We as New Democrats are proud to support Bill C-5, as we have been calling for this strengthened regime for several years. We 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.

As well, we in the NDP support the collaborative efforts between the provincial and federal governments that produced Bill C-5. We believe that collaboration with provincial and territorial governments to produce such measures moves our country forward. This is definitely something that, sadly, the Conservative government does not do enough of.

We know that the federal government, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador will be passing mirror legislation through their respective houses. The provincial governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have made a strong commitment to ensure the consistency of offshore regulation between the two jurisdictions.

Bill C-5 addresses long-standing gaps in legislation and regulation-making powers associated with occupational health and safety standards and their enforcement in Atlantic offshore oil development. The bill would amend the Atlantic accord to place the health and occupation safety regimes in legislation, which is extremely important. It is an important step forward that the NDP has called for in all relevant jurisdictions.

As I noted, however, the bill is not compliant with recommendation 29 of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry carried out by the Honourable Robert Wells. Bill C-5 does not provide for either an independent stand-alone safety regulator or an autonomous safety division within the petroleum boards. NDP efforts to provide for a review of the bill in five years, which could reopen the possibility of an independent offshore regulator, were unfortunately voted down by the Conservative government at the committee stage.

From our side, an NDP federal government would work with the provinces to put forward such measures in order to further strengthen the health and safety regime for Atlantic offshore workers. Nevertheless, we support this bill, as it is clear that it is well past due and is an important victory for the labour movement, for the former NDP government in Nova Scotia, and certainly for the NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador. They have been advocating for a legislated offshore safety regime for many years.

As I noted during my questions, it is clear that Bill C-5 is very much focused on the reality in the Atlantic, particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Nova Scotia, where offshore developments are an integral part of the economy.

However, as we know, in resource extractive industries it is workers who do the heavy lifting and put their lives and safety at risk day in, day out to produce the wealth of our country. As someone who represents northern Manitoba, a part of the country that depends in large part on resource extraction and on mining in particular, I am fully aware of the immense risks that people who go underground or work in smelters and refineries live with every day in the work they do. They do that work to provide for their families, contribute to their communities, and give Canadians the wealth and revenue that are so important in going forward.

It is particularly timely that we are talking about this, as it has been just 10 days since the National Day of Mourning, a very important day for all Canadians. It is a day when we take the time to mourn those who have died on the job, those who have been in workplace accidents, those who have been hurt and incapacitated in so many ways.

It is also a day when we take the time to strengthen our resolve to fight for the living, to make sure that we are talking about and acting on how we can make workplaces safer, how we can support health and safety regimes, and how we can ensure that unions have the support and the backing they need when pushing employers to step it up when it comes to health and safety.

It is very clear that we have a lot of work to do on this front. In fact, today my colleague, the member for Nickel Belt, made a very moving statement honouring the memory of two miners who were killed on the job in Sudbury. It reminded us that yes, in Canada and in 2014, people die because of health and safety failures in their workplaces.

Despite the calls for action and despite the work on the ground to prevent these kinds of senseless deaths, there is a lot of work to be done. Sadly, corporations have been negligent in too many cases in our country when it comes to looking out for health and safety.

The NDP's argument has always been to stand in solidarity with workers, no matter what sector they work in or what part of the country they live in. We stand by them and fight beside them for regulations and laws that would hold employers accountable and would ensure that health and safety is not negotiable or a matter of choice, but is mandated and regulated.

We are very supportive of Bill C-5 because it would mandate health and safety for offshore workers in a way that would prevent loss of life and further tragedies like the one in the Atlantic some years ago.

It is clear that there is more to be done. We can build on the successes of Bill C-5 by continuing to fight for an independent offshore regulator.

It is also important to review this legislation and see how it is implemented and how it will serve the best interests of workers.

We are disappointed by the unwillingness of the government in committee to provide for these amendments to the bill. However, we do want to acknowledge the many people in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia who worked very hard to make sure that tragedies like the ones that they and their families lived through are prevented.

We all have something to learn and to strive for in ensuring that workplaces across the country are safe and that no one loses their life doing something as important as going to work.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, obviously we are talking about a piece of legislation that pertains entirely to a specific part of the country. I am wondering if the member could speak to how the negotiations that took place and the benefits that will come from Bill C-5 may also be positive for the rest of the country and all Canadians.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with my hon. colleague from Churchill.

As always, I am pleased to rise in the House today to talk about Bill C-5, which was introduced as Bill C-61 during the first session of the 41st Parliament, as members probably all know.

I would like to begin by saying that the NDP will support, at report stage, this bill to amend the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act to enhance the safety and transparency of offshore petroleum activities.

These amendments would, primarily, create a new offshore workplace health and safety regime, which is a good thing. Bill C-5 addresses long-standing gaps in the legislation, as well as regulation-making authorities associated with workplace health and safety standards and how they apply to offshore petroleum extraction operations in the law. This is an important measure that the NDP has been seeking for some time.

Despite the federal government's refusal to implement recommendation no. 29 of the Wells Inquiry, Bill C-5 is a positive and necessary improvement to the current offshore health and safety regime because it places safety practices into legislation.

Bill C-5 is the culmination of over 12 years of negotiations, which started in 2001. In fact, I wonder what took the government so long to put these worker protection measures into law.

The bill also establishes a framework that clarifies the individual and shared roles of the federal government, the provincial governments, regulators, operators, employers, suppliers and employees. That is a lot of people, and I understand that the whole issue of the safety of our workers is rather complex and important, crucial even.

The bill is based on three basic principles.

First, offshore occupational health and safety laws must provide offshore workers with protection at least as good as that of onshore workers. That seems pretty basic to me. A worker must be protected regardless of where he or she works, whether offshore or onshore. No matter what environment a person works in, the conditions should be standardized and safe. No one wants to lose a colleague, a parent, a sister, an uncle or an aunt in a workplace accident. It is always tragic. During question period today, my colleague mentioned that we have already lost six miners in northern Ontario. That is six too many. It is the responsibility of all governments, federal and provincial alike, to ensure that our workers are safe.

Second, it is important to protect workers' rights: the right to know, the right to participate, the right to refuse unsafe work and the right to be protected from reprisals if they should blow the whistle on unsafe working conditions.

Third, it is necessary to support an occupational health and safety culture that emphasizes shared responsibility in the workplace.

New Democrats in the provinces in question had long been calling for these changes to be enshrined in law, but the Conservative government seemed reluctant to follow through. Nevertheless, we are pleased that this bill was introduced in the House.

However, it is disappointing that the federal government prevented us from making workers even safer by creating a stand-alone safety regulator.

I would like to quote the Honourable Robert Wells, who in a 2010 inquiry report on offshore helicopter safety said:

After a full study of the Transportation Safety Board’s Report, I have concluded that not only should such an independent safety regulator be created, it should also be given a clear and unambiguous safety mandate. This need is more urgent in the light of the TSB Report.

Justice Wells recommended that, even in the event that the recommendation was not considered feasible, a separate and autonomous safety division be created within the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

Unfortunately, the government has no interest in creating a stand-alone safety regulator. I am not the only one saying so. When he was the natural resources minister in Newfoundland and Labrador, Tom Marshall said the same thing.

The NDP is determined to work in partnership with the provinces to achieve better results, something that seems very difficult for my Conservative colleagues to do.

Bill C-5 also authorizes the Minister of Natural Resources and the provincial employment ministers, in consultation with the Minister of Employment and Social Development and the Minister of Transport, to develop offshore health and safety regulations. In addition, the Minister of Transport would be required to develop health and safety regulations for offshore workers in transit, because the bill also applies to workers who are moving between offshore marine facilities or structures, and that is a good thing.

This bill is definitely a step in the right direction. It may not be a big enough step, but it is a step nonetheless. It would have been a bigger step had the Conservatives not refused to consider, for example, the entirely reasonable NDP amendment that would have included a mandatory review of the law in five years. This type of provision is found in a number of laws. It is quite acceptable to review a law every five years, because things change. In order to adapt to new conditions, the laws in force must be reviewed so that they can be strengthened and so that they are an appropriate response to needs. They have to be evaluated and amended, if necessary. We thought it was a very reasonable amendment.

The principle of this amendment was supported by a number of key witnesses and corresponds to the position taken by Justice Wells on this issue. We believe that our amendment is necessary, I will repeat, for due diligence and good governance, especially given the complex nature of the bill and the fact that it pertains to several levels of government.

Nevertheless, we will support the bill, which is a positive and necessary improvement to the current regime. Furthermore, it will protect offshore workers at least as well as onshore workers. That is a good thing, and that is why I am pleased to rise in the House to give this speech in support of the bill.

The House resumed from March 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the third time and passed.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I think it is appropriate that perhaps it shall be nominated for a fiction award, perhaps for the Governor General's award under the category of fantasy. It bore little relation to anything I have heard or seen anywhere around here in the past week.

However, I am prepared to provide some factual responses on what we will be doing in the week ahead.

This afternoon we will continue the third reading debate on Bill C-5, the Offshore Health and Safety Act. If we wrap that up before 6:30, we will resume this morning’s third reading debate on Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act.

Tomorrow, the House will not sit in order to accommodate the events of the National Day of honour. Hon. members will recognize those Canadians who served in Afghanistan and, particularly, those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Those ceremonies on Parliament Hill will be the cornerstone of the nation's commemorations. There will be significant events all across Canada, in which all Canadians are welcome to participate.

Next week, on Monday, we will conclude the report stage of Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act. Tuesday will see third reading and final passage of the bill. Wednesday and Thursday shall be the sixth and seventh allotted days. On both occasions, we will debate New Democratic motions.

Friday, May 16 will see Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, debated at second reading.

Finally, Wednesday, May 14 shall be the day appointed, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), for the consideration of the main estimates related to Finance for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.

Bill C-5—Notice of Time Allocation

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the third reading stage of Bill C-5, 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose, at the next sitting, a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the bill.

Offshore Health and Safety

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we debated Bill C-5, the offshore health and safety act, at third reading.

While NDP members said they supported the bill, they continued to bring forward proposals that would further delay the passage of this important legislation. Offshore workers deserve better.

This legislation is widely supported by industry, offshore workers, the offshore regulatory boards, and key stakeholders, including Justice Robert Wells.

The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Province of Nova Scotia have already given royal assent to their respective bills and now wait on our Parliament for the law to come into force.

NDP members failed Canadian workers yesterday when they filibustered Bill C-5 and refused to allow Parliament to give offshore workers what they have been asking for.

When will the NDP stop its delay tactics and pass this bill?

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-5, 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, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to reinforce the point that both provinces have already given royal assent to their respective bills to enact these changes.

The member opposite talked about delays. I am asking him to stop delaying now. The provinces have been waiting patiently for Bill C-5 to pass through our Parliament so that this new regime that would protect workers can come into force.

Will members opposite now allow this legislation to finally come into force so workers do not have to wait another day without the extra safety measures that Bill C-5 would bring to them?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the very great pleasure of rising to speak to Bill C-5, which does have weaknesses—some of my colleagues have already pointed out some of them—but which seems to have drawn a consensus on the part of the labour unions and the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

This is an extremely important issue. I have a union background myself, and as the official opposition labour critic, I believe that any progress that is made to help workers stay healthy and offer them protection and a safe work environment should be embraced and encouraged.

That is why in the NDP, we recognize that despite its weaknesses, Bill C-5 is a step in the right direction in an issue that should be above partisanship. I would like to point out that today is March 27. In one month and one day it will be the National Day of Mourning. Each year on April 28, we remember those who have lost their lives at work. It is an important day, the symbol of which is the canary, once used in the mines to indicate when the oxygen supply was failing. When the canary died, it was time to get out of the mine, and quickly.

Last summer, I had an opportunity to visit the mine in Springhill, Nova Scotia, and I have to admit that there was a good reason why the first union in Canada was founded in the mines of Nova Scotia, where people wielded their picks on their knees in the dark. If they were not killed in an explosion, they died of black lung, because their lungs were full of coal dust. Things are different now. Unions have been legal in Canada since 1872, but before that, they were not. It has only been a little more than a century. We must continue to see to it that conditions for those working on offshore oil and gas projects are as safe as they can be.

On April 28, we commemorate all those who have lost their lives at work. It has to be said that there are many more deaths than commonly thought. In 1993, there were 758 recorded deaths in the workplace. In 2004, there were 928. In 2005, there were 1,097. That is 1,097 individuals, nearly 1,100 people in a single year who left for work one morning and never came home. This is intolerable and unacceptable. As legislators, we should do everything in our power to put in place regulatory frameworks so that these terrible things never happen again.

Nearly 1,100 people losing their lives in the workplace. Given that the average worker in Canada or Quebec works 230 days a year, this means five deaths every working day. Five people dead from trying to earn a living. People should never lose their lives from trying to earn a living and support a family.

Offshore workers deserve our support, and our support at this stage for Bill C-5. It is based on three major principles that the NDP shares and wishes to promote. Workplace health and safety legislation should protect workers—in this case, offshore workers—at least as well as it protects onshore workers. It is a simple question of fairness.

We understand that resources have to be more substantial. My colleague has already pointed out that it is much more difficult to help someone at sea than someone in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who is within a 10-minute drive of three hospitals. Being far away at sea is no reason for a person not to receive the necessary emergency assistance and care in such situations.

Workers’ rights must be protected. This is extremely important. A workplace health and safety culture that recognizes a shared responsibility should be supported. Workers themselves obviously have a responsibility to take care. The employer has a responsibility to take every measure necessary to ensure that workers' lives and safety are not placed in jeopardy.

The government is responsible for putting legislation in place that will compel all parties to act responsibly so that when people leave for work in the morning, there is every chance that they will come home that evening. This is extremely important.

Unfortunately, this bill has taken a long time. It has been under discussion for 12 years. We are happy that it is moving forward, but it is moving at a snail’s pace. The Conservative Party, and the Liberal Party before it, could have done their due diligence much sooner.

Today, the government has placed this bill before us. Better late than never, but it has been rather a long time coming. Moreover, while the government is working with two provincial governments and the unions to improve workplace health and safety for offshore oil and gas workers, it is at the same time undermining health and safety rights in its own legislation, with Bill C-4. It is changing the definition of workplace danger that employees working for organizations under federal jurisdiction can use in order to exercise their right of refusal to work.

A worker’s right of refusal means being able to say that it seems to him dangerous to go where his employer is asking him to go, because he believes that he could have something fall on his head, say, or slip and fall, or step on a live wire.

In a budget implementation act, the Canada Labour Code was amended to change the definition of the word “danger”, which must now be a significant and immediate threat. For example, if the employee is working with asbestos and he risks having cancer in 20 years, this is not immediate. So there may be some argument about this.

Furthermore, the threat must be significant, without any definition of what a significant threat is, or consultation with business, industry, trades or unions. This has all suddenly been presented to us like a rabbit out of a hat.

In parliamentary committee, questions were asked about what constitutes a significant threat. If I lose a finger, is this significant or not? If I lose a leg, is it significant? What piece of the body has to be lost or damaged before it is considered significant?

We asked about the studies the Conservatives relied on for changing the definition and whether there was a problem with the current definition. The answer was that 80% of cases of refusals to work for health and safety reasons were not justified. We asked to see the documents, and there were not any. Their estimates were based on internal discussions. This is what we learned in committee. That is really something.

In those discussions, apparently, they heard talk of situations where the claims were not justified or where there was some abuse of the system. They told themselves they would have to get tough.

In getting tough, they are likely to endanger the health or the lives of employees who work for an organization under federal jurisdiction, and, for us in the NDP, this is unacceptable.

We think it is a shame that, on the one hand, the government is working to improve the health and safety of some workers, which is a good thing and something we are supporting, and on the other hand, it is complicating the right to refuse work for tens of thousands of people.

Even if it were true that 80% of cases were not justified, that means that 20% of cases were indeed justified, and this is what counts. This is what is important for us. The job will perhaps have to wait an hour longer. That is not important. An inspector will come and look into the problem. The important thing is that no one is hurt and no one dies on the job.

We in the NDP are going to support Bill C-5. However, I think that we should have brought in recommendation 29 made by Robert Wells, who said, “I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire report”.

Recommendation 29 is the only recommendation that is not included in the bill.

Recommendation 29 calls for a new, independent and stand-alone organization to be established to regulate health and safety matters in the offshore areas of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. If that is not possible, Justice Wells recommended, in the alternative, that the government create a separate and autonomous safety division in that department with a separate budget, separate leadership and an organizational structure designed to deal only with health and safety matters, and that an advisory board be established, composed of mature and experienced persons who are fully representative of the community and unconnected with the oil industry.

That is very important indeed.

This is a bill that brings regulatory progress. For once, the government has worked in co-operation with the provinces, but once is not a habit.

However, one piece is missing, and that is a genuinely independent organization that would help us monitor the measures that are put in place and that is not connected to the industry or the government. In our minds, that is an essential recommendation, and we very much deplore the fact that it is not addressed in Bill C-5.

That will not prevent us from voting for the bill at this time, but we believe the government should make consequential amendments to it.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, only time will tell.

What I can say is that caution was the main theme of my speech, which was intended as a friendly warning to the Conservative members. Having been slapped in the face so many times over the past few weeks, they should take a step back and reconsider this kind of review mechanism.

Yes, passing Bill C-5 is important. It is long overdue. However, just because others were asleep at the switch does not mean we should do whatever happens to come randomly to mind. What it means is that we should be cautious.

That was the point of our amendment: to include a review mechanism. We are currently doing reviews with respect to official languages and part XVII of the Criminal Code. The MPs who passed section 530 and on of part XVII were smart because they set out a review mechanism to see how the legislation worked in real life. When it comes to worker safety especially, there can be no harm in doing a review.

The word “worker” is not a dirty word. We are all workers. Every day, people do all kinds of work, and some of them are exposed to more danger than others. It is just as important to protect these people as it is to protect every other victim in society.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech. She reminded us that Bill C-5 is a definite and necessary improvement to the existing occupational health and safety system for all concerned. She also reminded us of the importance of protecting these people at work.

In addition, she mentioned the government's refusal to consider the NDP's reasonable amendment, which was to include a mandatory five-year review period.

Can she tell us more about the consequences of that refusal?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say once again publicly that I am impressed by your French. As the member for Gatineau, I can say that Quebeckers really appreciate it.

I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-5, just as I am pleased to do so at every opportunity. I do it as often as I can, so that I can give a voice to the people of Gatineau. They did not elect an MP so that she could just come here and sit back and rubber stamp all the government's bills. That is not right and that is not at all the promise I made at the time.

I would like to begin by congratulating my NDP colleagues who worked so hard on this bill. Considering all the interest shown by the Conservatives and the Liberals, I thought it was just a tiny, short bill, until I saw the 270 pages and I realized that this is an extremely important bill—I am hearing this everywhere I go—and above all, extremely complex.

I will never accept the moving of any time allocation motions in the House, which is why we object every time the government does it. Once or twice could probably be justified, but when we get to the 60th time, we begin to wonder whether this is part of a standard procedure to prohibit debate.

I will also not accept hearing in the House, in questions from the Conservative or other benches, that if we vote in favour of a bill it should automatically move to the next stage. Why? The mandate given to us by voters is to express opinions on bills on their behalf. As the opposition, and especially as the official opposition, we are also required to do the work that the government sometimes refuses to do because it is imposing its vision by virtue of its majority.

I often remind members that this strong Conservative majority was elected by 39% of the population, and 61% of the population would like to have their say once in a while. Sometimes, our opinions are heard by even a certain percentage of the 39%. We cannot simply rubber stamp bills.

However, it is not surprising coming from this government. Yesterday, in another context quite similar to this one, my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord asked the Minister of Justice a question regarding another time allocation. The Conservatives wanted to prevent debate and it seems they are criticizing us for wanting to express our opinion on Bill C-5. This is what the member said to the minister:

I have been working on this issue for two and a half years, and I have not yet been able to speak to Bill C-13. There are so many of us in the NDP who wish to speak to this that there is a good chance that I will not be able to as a result of this time allocation motion.

The member was asking whether the minister would be interested in what he had to say about this bill. The minister was frank and forthright in his reply. I will quote him word for word from beginning to end, unlike the Minister of State for Democratic Reform who quotes selectively so that the information provided is incomplete and makes no sense. The entire quote is as follows:

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, no. I do not feel inclined to hear from the member.

That says it all. I spent the night thinking about that comment and telling myself that I, a woman and MP for Gatineau, elected by my constituents in 2011, would proudly rise to speak to Bill C-5.

This bill is of interest not only to the government and the Minister of Labour, but also to all of those elected to this House, and it is our duty to discuss it. Nothing exasperates me more than having to read rulings like Whaling, Nadon and all of the others that we have been receiving recently from various courts and that are saying that our work has not been done correctly. I would like to draw the attention of the House to the serious role that we have to play and particularly to the Whaling ruling, which was handed down last Thursday by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was looking at the issue of parole, but it dealt only with the retroactivity aspect. Justice Wagner made an important point in paragraph 67.

I hope that everyone realizes what Justice Wagner said in his obiter dictum. It is not necessarily part of the ruling, but it is downright disturbing. In any case, it will be in writing. He said that some of the debate cast doubt on the constitutionality of the legislation.

It was a very acrimonious debate. That has taught me that the role we have in the House is important. We need to take part in debate, stand up and be heard. The Conservative government, and sometimes its friends at the back of the room on the other end, like to take the words that have been used and what has been said, add some artistic flair by omitting certain parts and make it seem as though something different was implied.

This shows how important the words we use and the work we do are. What is said here could be used in court. It could be analyzed to determine whether a bill we want to pass in the House is legal.

There is a procedure that the Speaker is supposed to enforce to ensure that the rules are followed and decorum is maintained. However, we also have a fundamental obligation to ensure that we are making an informed decision when we pass a bill, which is enforced and has an impact on Canadians.

This is the first day of debate on Bill C-5. However, I have heard in the House how terrible and shameful it is that NDP members want to rise and speak to a bill that affects the safety of people who work sometimes difficult offshore jobs. I salute these people and the work they do for Canadians.

It is not too much to ask to want to review a bill. It is part of the opposition's job to tell the people who are watching us and who are interested in Bill C-5 what happened and what was said at second reading, what happened and what was proposed in committee, and what was rejected out of hand by the Conservatives. More often than not that is what they do when we propose amendments. With the amendments rejected, the bill comes back to the House at report stage and third reading.

Wanting to support the bill is one thing, but we also want to caution the government. I do not want to be accused one day of sitting back in my seat when there was a serious amendment that the government might have benefited from hearing to ensure that it was doing the right thing.

Nothing has been done in response to a very tragic situation that happened more than 12 years ago. This government boasts about being all about law and order and siding with victims. However, workers are victims too sometimes, whether this government likes it or not. Depending on the type of work they do, workers can end up in very dangerous situations.

Accordingly, any measure that affects their safety and deals with a tragic situation, like the one that happened off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, deserves special attention. The amendment proposed by the NDP was quite reasonable.

In statements by members, my colleague mentioned the meeting with the fire chiefs who said after the tragedy in L'Isle-Verte that sprinklers are essential in seniors' residences. I agree with them. We always wait for tragedy to strike before we do anything.

I will never let this government tell me when I have the right to stand up and when I do not. It is our duty. Shame on those who engage in rubber stamping for this government.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to join with my NDP colleagues, since we are the only ones taking part in this debate, in supporting Bill C-5 at third reading.

First, however, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Gatineau.

We in the NDP believe that Bill C-5 is particularly important, because it is intended to correct major problems in the current legislation and in the authority for making regulations associated with occupational health and safety standards in the offshore oil and gas industry.

In concrete terms, all this means that passing Bill C-5 would enshrine safety practices in the legislation. The employer would assume primary responsibility for occupational health and safety and would be required to take part in implementing and co-ordinating the measures needed to ensure employee safety.

For their part, employees would now have the opportunity to refuse to perform an activity that they have reason to believe is not safe. This provides some critical autonomy for our workers, who are always concerned about their safety and security in the workplace. Employees would also be protected from reprisals if they report a situation they consider unsafe.

Bill C-5 is a necessary and constructive improvement in occupational employee health and safety in offshore areas, and this is why the NDP is proud to support it. Employee protection has always been, and will always be, a priority for the NDP, in every field of work.

In our view, it does not matter whether the workers are land-based or working in offshore sites. They deserve the same level of protection. The provinces have the same view. Back in the day, the NDP government of Nova Scotia put a great deal of work into this issue. Newfoundland and Labrador also worked hard and sent numerous requests to the federal government for this kind of occupational safety system to be implemented. Of course, the NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador was very active in pushing the analysis and discussion on this issue forward.

Clearly, we in the NDP are going to support all the efforts that have been made by the provinces and we are delighted to see the improvements that will be implemented when the bill is passed.

The amendments we are talking about here were requested over 10 years ago by the provinces, primarily Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, as I mentioned. It was high time that the federal government considered this issue. It is a matter that will also become more and more important for Quebec, as there is more and more discussion of oil development off our coastline, regardless of any personal views on the subject. These could also be important measures for Quebec workers, who may well be working in these areas in the future, here again, notwithstanding anyone’s personal opinion about oil development per se.

We in the NDP would also like to commend the federal government and the provinces for their willingness to work together, which made it possible to arrive at the bill that is before us today. It is a sign of openness to dialogue and co-operation that I personally find quite surprising on the part of the Conservatives, as we have grown accustomed to a great deal more inflexibility and intolerance from them. Nevertheless, I hope they have developed a taste for this new approach and that they will decide to continue along this path. Let us think positively. We can always hope that this method of working in co-operation with, rather than against, the provinces will be a model for dealing with any future issues they will have to address together with the provinces.

These days, safety is a major concern. With a great deal of effort, we got back to the issue of workforce training. Here again, however, there were disputes, because the Conservatives’ approach was simply to bully the provinces, asking them to do what they were told, failing which they would no longer support them. They would not get the funding requested and would be the losers. Be that as it may, I will continue to encourage them. I will therefore ask the Conservatives to maintain this admirable receptiveness with the provinces in the future.

With respect to the bill now before us, it has to be said that it is not a cure-all, and does not resolve all the existing problems. Despite the efforts of the NDP and the repeated requests from the provinces, Bill C-5 still does not contain a provision to establish an independent offshore safety regulator.

This measure had originally been proposed by Justice Robert Wells in his 2010 report. He stated the following in the report: “I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire Report”.

This was recommendation 29, which called for the creation of a new, independent, stand-alone agency to regulate offshore safety. This recommendation is important, because it would finally lead to the establishment of a single independent agency responsible for regulating safety.

The issue came into prominence following an accident that caused a death. It was in that context that the debate focused on the creation of such an independent agency. It is very important for us in the NDP, and unfortunately it is not included in the current bill.

In comments made a little earlier by my colleagues, both Conservative and Liberal, I heard complaints about the fact that we were still discussing this bill, that we were wasting our time and that we should pass it at once. I wonder where they were 12 years ago, when the negotiations began.

Both Liberal and Conservative members have taken this issue lightly, and done absolutely nothing. In their place, I too would wish to avoid the subject, I would not want to talk about it, and I would want it to be voted on as quickly as possible in order to forget about what was not done in the past.

I found it was unfortunate to be hearing these comments, because the experts who testified before the committee made clear the importance of having such an agency, in order to put in place the necessary measures to protect our offshore workers. Unfortunately, we have come this far and still nothing has been done. Elected representatives in Newfoundland and Labrador, among others, have deplored the fact that the agency is not included in the bill.

An NDP government would take all the necessary action, and hold all the necessary discussions, to work with the provinces to set up such an independent agency. In our view, it is a priority. Yet it does not seem to have been a priority for the current government or for the previous Liberal governments.

In 2015, the political landscape will have changed, as we will have a New Democrat government that will at last be able to achieve the practical results so long awaited by the offshore workers. This is really important to us.

In his remarks a little earlier, my colleague from Brossard—La Prairie mentioned that the NDP had proposed an amendment in committee to try to improve the bill. The amendment called for a provision to ensure that the effectiveness of the legislation would be reviewed five years after it was passed. Therefore, it would have been possible to see whether it could be improved, possibly through the creation of an independent agency, as recommended by Justice Wells. We are not yet at that point.

I do not wish to say that the Conservatives are acting in bad faith, but I see no other reason. We are therefore going to insist on this. Because of the bad faith of the government in place, the amendment was defeated. The result therefore is a law that is somewhat lacking, but nevertheless represents a definite improvement for the workers.

With a view to additional protections for those working offshore, the NDP can support the bill. As I was saying, it is unfortunate that we were not successful in resolving all the problems that had nevertheless been made very quite clear by the provinces and by numerous experts. Some years ago, one of those problems was directly demonstrated by the death of a worker, yet we are still engaged in the same debate. However, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has stated that the current federal government clearly did not have the desire to establish such an agency.

In spite of everything, being able to incorporate better measures in the legislation for occupational health and safety is a significant step in the right direction. Given the expanding development of offshore oil and gas, this step should have been taken a long time ago. We are nevertheless getting the desired results. That is good. The NDP is very proud to support this bill.

I also wish to reiterate my pride in the work done by New Democrat MLAs in Newfoundland and Labrador and the then NDP government of Nova Scotia. They worked very hard to achieve this outcome. They can be proud of the work they did.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give my opinion on Bill C-5, 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. The title is a bit long, but the purpose of this bill is to correct certain long-standing deficiencies in order to protect offshore workers who work specifically in the oil and gas field. This is a matter of health and safety.

The reason why I say this matter has dragged on and that these are long-standing deficiencies is that we have known about these problems for more than 12 years. They came to light more particularly following an accident. I lament the fact that this has taken so long. Why did the governments of the time, both Liberal and Conservative, wait so long to take action to protect the health and safety of workers? That is the least we can do.

On the other hand, I do want to acknowledge that this is indeed a step in the right direction, since such recognition is deserved.

This issue is of course somewhat complex in that there had to be a lot of co-operation between the federal and provincial governments. Once again, I admit, the government has managed to speak and work with the provinces. I will come back to what could have been done better later, but I want to say that this is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, that is not the case often enough.

As an aside, in the case of the Champlain Bridge, a matter that concerns me directly, the government clearly does not want to co-operate with the provincial government or the municipalities. It has decided that if there are no tolls, there will be no bridge. However, when we talk to the provincial government and a number of municipalities, we see that they are opposed to the government’s plan. The NDP is also opposed to the government’s plan to charge a toll to replace the Champlain Bridge. Now I will get back to the subject at hand. I wanted to point out that sometimes the government can work with the provinces. It has managed to do so on this bill, and I do not understand why it does not do so all the time, why it insists on working behind closed doors and not co-operating to advance matters for the public good. In this case, this is a step in the right direction.

However, as my colleagues mentioned in committee, the NDP wanted to move amendments. One of the main points pertains to recommendation 29 of the Wells report. In fact, an inquiry was conducted following a rather tragic accident that caused a number of deaths off the coast of St. John’s. The report of the investigator, Mr. Wells, contains recommendations, one of the main ones being that an independent organization be made responsible for conducting follow-up. I am going to quote the report for greater clarity: “I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire Report.” Recommendation 29 calls for a new, independent and stand-alone organization to be established to regulate safety in the offshore. That recommendation is very important and was made following the inquiry. It really stated how important it was to establish such an organization.

The idea of creating a safety regulator is not a new one. We did not come up with it. We see it elsewhere. By comparison, for example, such independent, stand-alone organizations have already been established in Norway, the United Kingdom and Australia. Even the United States has a virtual equivalent called the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

A solution was recommended following a very important inquiry. We do not understand why the government refuses to go that route, why it is rejecting an amendment that might have been positive and practical and might have helped to improve health and safety.

The government often says that it will conduct studies and consider recommendations. However, it has been doing nothing for at least 20 years, even though the Transportation Safety Board says that DOT-111 tanker cars are unsafe and even dangerous. A Liberal government was in power 20 years ago. Today, we have the Conservative government and it is still doing nothing. It has no timeline to replace the old DOT-111 cars. That is what troubles me.

Bill C-5 comes in the wake of the helicopter crash in St. John’s, and the Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations were made in response to the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, which caused 47 deaths. The Transportation Safety Board recently released a report stating that the problem with the DOT-111 tanker cars was linked to that tragedy. Despite that fact, the government is taking no action.

There is still a parallel with this case. It has taken 12 years to act. In the case of the DOT-111 tanker cars, it has been 20 years and the government still has not done anything.

Yesterday I asked the minister when he would have a timeline, and I got no answer. In fact, I got a vague, meaningless answer. There is still no timeline even though we know it can be done in a few years. However, the government has to be willing to take action. It has to show that this is what it wants. That takes a little trust and political leadership on the government’s part. That would be very much appreciated on this side of the House.

Bill C-5 is a step in the right direction. That is why we are supporting it at this stage. However, having been a member of several committees, I regret the fact that the government, which also has a majority in committee, rejects virtually all amendments whether they are moved by the official opposition or by the third party. It does not listen to the other parties.

That is unfortunate because the current situation is very real. The official opposition did not create it. This comes from an inquiry report. Experts have studied the problem. I am not an expert, but I trust the opinion of the people who went into the field and examined the situation. Those people made a recommendation to us, saying, moreover, that it was definitely the most important one, but the government set it aside. Why? That is hard to understand on this side of the House.

We want to establish an independent, stand-alone agency because we want to improve safety regulations. That is very important. I apologize for constantly drawing a parallel with Transport Canada because this relates directly to the file I am working on, but it reveals the same attitude on the government’s part. It receives recommendations, but it does nothing.

Once again, in committee today, we heard from experts who told us about the problems. Unfortunately, I can anticipate the government’s attitude. It will say that it has heard some good recommendations but that it is going to shelve them and do what it wants.

With regard to the railway safety example, I find that situation unacceptable. The Transportation Safety Board made three recommendations in its report on the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, which caused 47 deaths. That report is not yet complete because the investigation is still under way. Unfortunately, the government is doing nothing to move this matter forward. That is deplorable because we are talking about saving lives, about helping people by improving health and safety. The government has turned a deaf ear despite the experts’ recommendations.

I am going to conclude by congratulating the government for doing something quite positive after procrastinating for 12 years. There has been some co-operation with the provincial government. However, the government can and should do better.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Brossard—La Prairie.

As everyone knows, the NDP is very concerned about the health and safety of Canadians at work. Bill C-5 is a step in the right direction for offshore workers. Nevertheless, it has some flaws, and that is what I would like to talk about.

The debate on amending the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures began in 1999, when an offshore worker died off the coast of Nova Scotia. Negotiations, however, did not get underway until 2001. The issue came up again in 2010 following the report by Justice Robert Wells.

On March 12, 2009, a helicopter crashed off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, killing 17 people. There was one sole survivor. After the accident, an inquiry was launched. It was carried out by Justice Wells. The judge himself stated that the most important part of the report was recommendation number 29, which recommended that:

a new, independent, and stand-alone Safety Regulator be established to regulate safety in the C-NL offshore.

This recommendation from Judge Wells illustrates the first obvious flaw in this bill, even though it has the support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. This fact has been criticized by Tom Marshall, the Minister of Natural Resources for Newfoundland and Labrador. Judge Wells also proposed a three-point plan in case that recommendation was not adopted. He recommended that the government:

Create a separate and autonomous Safety Division of C-NLOPB, with a separate budget, separate leadership, and an organizational structure designed to deal only with safety matters;

Establish...an Advisory Board composed of mature and experienced persons fully representative of the community and who are unconnected with the oil industry;

Ensure that the Safety Division would have the mandate and ability to engage, either on staff or as consultants, expert advisors to assist it in its regulatory tasks.

I remind members that at the committee stage, the NDP proposed an amendment to Bill C-5 regarding the implementation of this recommendation. The amendment would have required the minister to table a report to Parliament within five years on the enforcement and implementation of the bill and on the need for a separate and autonomous offshore safety regulatory body.

The answer seems to be that the government's top priority is resolving this issue as quickly as possible, despite the fact that negotiations have been under way since 2001. Then, they will not have to worry about it anymore, even though revising this bill could only benefit Canada's offshore workers.

Second, let us talk about relations between the federal and provincial governments. The Conservative government does not co-operate with the provincial governments enough, despite the fact that they have to have the federal government's consent to change their safety regulations for offshore workers.

An NDP federal government would have worked closely with the provincial governments in order to protect the safety of these workers. It would have addressed this issue in 2001, when the negotiations between the federal government and the governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador began.

This is nothing but another blatant case of the Conservative government failing to listen to the provinces' demands. Let us not forget that these negotiations began in 2001 and that the bill still has not been passed.

What excuse do the Conservatives have for dragging their feet on this issue, which was on the table before they even came to power? How, in almost eight years, have the Conservatives not found enough time to resolve this issue?

I could ask the same question of our Liberal colleagues, who could have considered the issue as early as 1999. We cannot waste any more time. We need to pass this bill now, once we have finished with the necessary debate.

Shell and BP are preparing to explore for oil off the coast of Nova Scotia, and I am certain that no one here wants a repeat of the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon spill. On the contrary, I think that everyone here wants to know that offshore workers will be safe and healthy.

Third, I firmly believe that Bill C-5 is a step in the right direction when it comes to protecting workers. This bill will give workers the right to refuse tasks that they believe are unsafe. In addition, the bill will protect workers from reprisal if they report unsafe situations. In so doing, this bill further ensures the safety of offshore workers.

However, I want to reiterate that this bill would be an even better fit if it implemented Justice Wells' recommendation number 29 or if it would at least call for a review, in five years, of how the bill is being enforced to determine whether the creation of a new, independent and stand-alone organization to regulate safety issues in the offshore is warranted.

In closing, the NDP recognizes the merits of Bill C-5, which is a step in the right direction when it comes to better protecting workers. However, we deplore the fact that it has taken so long to get to this point. The NDP deplores the government's dismal co-operation with the Governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador and the fact that it is ignoring Justice Wells' recommendation 29 on the creation of an independent and stand-alone safety regulator for the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore, which was the most important recommendation in his report.

Before becoming an MP, I took human resources management and occupational health and safety courses. These are critical issues. Safety is paramount when doing one's job and many studies show that we do a better job and we feel better if we feel safe. When we do not have that pressure, we feel happier about going to work and when we feel happy we do a better job. Therefore, it is essential.

A Conservative member asked why we were taking the time to discuss this and why we did not simply want to end debate and vote. The reason is that it is very important to have the opportunity to express our views about a bill in the House. The Conservatives often use time allocation motions to impose closure in order to quickly pass as many bills as possible.

As parliamentarians, our role in the House is to rise and debate these bills. This is a means of communicating with my constituents. I tell them about the speeches I give on various issues. Even if I am in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, which is in Montreal, Quebec, and far from where these issues are centred, these issues are of interest to Canadians across the country. This is about health and safety and it is important to take the time to discuss this issue.

We are nonetheless pleased to support this bill because it is an improvement, even though it does not go far enough.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise and speak to Bill C-5, 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.

Hearing long titles like this one, we are often left wondering what the bill is really about. This legislation is a culmination of a number of attempts to address safety for workers in offshore situations.

Most Canadians who work on land just take the right to refuse unsafe work for granted, but we should not, because workers fought for the right to refuse unsafe work for many years. We have the labour movement to thank for its advocacy in this area.

As we have learned more about occupational health and safety, we have learned that it is a shared responsibility, that employees have to be integrally involved in developing policies and practices, and that enforcement has to be there as well. We are pleased that this legislation would address those aspects and would give offshore workers the right to refuse unsafe work.

This legislation is a result of co-operation and collaboration between partners, and by that I mean the Atlantic provinces and the labour movement. Labour movements in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia worked closely together to make sure protective regimes would be put in place for offshore workers in the oil and gas industry. It is mind-boggling that such a regime did not exist already, because a worker is a worker. If workers are covered when their feet are planted on the ground, then why would workers in offshore situations not be covered?

We have had a number of tragic disasters, and those disasters have made us as a society and at different levels of government look at where our legislative framework is to protect those who go to work.

Offshore workers are like workers everywhere else. They get up in the morning, some in the evening, and they go to work to make a living. There is every expectation on the part of those workers and the families they leave at home that they will return home safely. Once this legislation is enacted, our offshore workers will have the right to refuse unsafe work, and I am pleased about that.

This legislation reminds me of Bill C-525, the legislation we were debating last night. I can see direct links between the two bills. In Bill C-525 we see a not-so-secretive attack on organized labour and on workers' ability to organize.

It has taken workers in the offshore industry many years to get rights that other people already have. Having been a teacher for most of my life, I know how hard it was to get an occupational health and safety framework implemented in the school system for teachers as well.

I am also reminded that there is often a disdain by my colleagues across the way for working people who have chosen to be part of a collective called a union. However, I am very proud of the achievements of the union movement.

Looking back to the 19th century, we can see the reason that unions were founded. It was to provide some balance because workers' lives were in danger. Hands were being caught in machinery, and amputated. Young children were being sent into the mines and terrible accidents were occurring. People were being forced to work incredibly long hours. It was at that time, out of desperation, that workers decided that singly they could not bring about change. If they wanted to bring about meaningful change, they had to hold hands and become a collective.

That kind of advocacy for the rights of workers, for a right to a decent living, for the right to work in safe workplaces and ensure the maximum safety, are all things that the union movement is still advocating for today. It is not just for the unions themselves, but for all Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, I know you would want each and every worker in Canada to have occupational health and safety protection and the right to refuse unsafe work. If we do not have that, we are left in a very vulnerable position.

When we look at the legislation, the overall responsibility to carry out and implement a lot of it is put in the hands of the operator. Therefore, I was pleased to hear that the government had paid some attention, as I had hoped, to recommendation 29 of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador public inquiry into offshore helicopter safety, which was conducted by the Hon. Robert Wells.

This inquiry spent a lot of time listening to experts, and as much as I know that my colleagues across the way have an allergy to data, science, informed decisions, and listening to experts, I was quite impressed by the recommendation put forward by Hon. Wells. It brought home to me that we are once again passing a piece of legislation that is a step in the right direction and will enshrine the right to refuse unsafe work. However, at the same time, we are not writing legislation for yesterday. We should be writing legislation that is current for today, tomorrow, and the next few years.

The Hon. Robert Wells put forward what I would say are fairly reasonable options: the best case scenario and the one that would be acceptable if the best case scenario is not taken up by government.

In June 2010, the Hon. Robert Wells wrote:

I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire report.

Recommendation 29 demanded that a new independent and stand-alone safety regulator be established to regulate safety in the CNL offshore. That seems fairly clear. Then, Justice Wells, because he knows what parliamentarians can be like, wanted to give people a choice and not an ultimatum. It was not this or nothing.

He came up with a second option. The alternative option was that the government create a separate autonomous safety division of C-NLOPB, with a separate budget, separate leadership, and an organizational structure designed to deal only with safety matters. It was also to establish an advisory board composed of mature—that is often questionable—and experienced persons, who are fully representative of the community and unconnected with the oil industry. He also recommended ensuring that the safety division would have the mandate and ability to engage expert advisors, either on staff or as consultants, to assist it in its regulatory tasks.

The report further explains that the safety regulator should be separate and independent from all other components of offshore regulation and should stand alone, with safety being its only regulatory task. As I said, with a government that has an allergy to data, science, and informed decision-making, this legislation fails to meet either of those standards set out in that report. It is a report, by the way, that was not written overnight. It was well researched. As I said earlier, it is a shame that it was not included in the legislation.

We are supporting this piece of legislation because it is moving in the right direction. However, once again, I am going to make a plea to my colleagues across the way that they amend this legislation, even now, and maybe take the time so that it has some life beyond, rather than providing just the absolute minimum. I will say, though, that this is better than nothing.

We as the NDP are very committed to saying that when we form government we will continue to work with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Even before we form government, we are committed to further strengthening worker health and safety by working towards the creation of an independent, stand-alone safety regulator. That is the right thing to do.

I have talked about the government having an allergy to data and not listening to the experts. I live in the beautiful riding of Newton—North Delta. Unfortunately for us, in my riding we have had a very high number of homicides, and some have really touched members in my community.

Once again, when we look at the numbers and see how under-policed we are compared to ridings that surround us, in talking about facts and science it makes sense that we need that extra policing on our streets right now. I have a growing number of constituents who are becoming very disillusioned. They are asking how much more information, facts, and experience they have to share with the decision-makers for them to realize that we have a community that needs support and additional policing.

When we are talking about offshore on the east coast, it also brings home to me that we have this beautiful geography. We are a country that spans, not from coast to coast, but from coast to coast to coast. On the west coast we are just as concerned about our safety offshore as we are about worker safety on land. We are also very concerned about our environment and the impact of offshore exploration on the environment. We have to make sure that we have rigorous environmental protections in place.

Being a port city, Vancouver recently experienced a work stoppage for almost a month, which had quite an impact on the community. I had businessman after businessman coming to tell me about the impact.

I also met with the truckers, who were telling me about the impact on them with the terrific wait periods that existed. Compared to 2005, when they could do 5 runs, now they can do maybe two; if they were lucky, they could do three runs. They told me how their income level had gone down but their expenses had gone way up.

Just as it has taken the federal government so long to act on this piece of legislation, in a similar way we saw the federal government being remiss in not facilitating negotiations long before the strike started. Every party realized what the issues were, and it was the government that could have facilitated a much earlier resolution. It could have negotiated a settlement to ensure we did not have the economic impacts on both the business community, the transloading companies, and the drivers and their families.

Earlier today I heard about the wheat that is backlogged. In my riding, we ran out of storage space. Now I am very concerned for the transloading companies that move lentils, chickpeas, and all legumes, as well as all the wheat. They are going to be facing some extraordinary challenges in the near future.

I do want to congratulate the parties, the truckers, the transloading companies, and the Port, for the resolution to the strike that would never have taken place if the government had played an active role at the beginning. Whether it is about health and safety issues, other working conditions, or the ability to make a decent living and feed their families, workers have found there is power in working together and being part of a collective.

We pass bills that go into law, but unless there is enforcement, they remain words on paper. My plea to my colleagues across the way is to ensure that with the moves we have made in the right direction for worker safety in the offshore industry, especially with the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord, that we at least ensure we have implementation measures in place that are not just “we are asking you to”. For implementation to happen, there has to be real enforcement, and real enforcement has to have real consequences for those who do not ensure that the safety measures are in place.

Being a teacher, an important part of occupational health and safety is education. That is the education of workers. No occupational health and safety culture is complete without employers and workers receiving a thorough education and both of them working collaboratively. However, the power ultimately lies in the hands of the employer to ensure those conditions. All the worker has is the right to refuse unsafe work.

The enforcement and education are critical components of any successful occupational health and safety program. Having worked with a very successful one in B.C., I know that empowering the educational component can be successful.

I am certainly hoping that the operators who are being charged with these responsibilities will develop an educational program and also look at real enforcement.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the third time and passed.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I first want to say here what I said on Twitter last week; that is, I would like to thank the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley for the working relationship that we have enjoyed over the last couple of years. I wish him well with his new critic responsibilities.

Now let me thank the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster for his first Thursday question. I welcome the hon. member to his new role as the House leader of the official opposition. I have been told by my staff that he is the tenth House leader from across the aisle with whom I have had the pleasure of working.

While I am confident that his predecessor has briefed him on our government's approach toward facilitating a hard-working, productive, and orderly House of Commons, I see that he has already fallen into one of the grievous errors of his predecessor. For a whole bunch of reasons, I would encourage him to look in some detail at the House of Commons rules and procedures.

For example, he was concerned with time allocation and referred to it again as limiting debate, yet when he reviews the rules, as I know he is going to, and I know he will do that with some enthusiasm in the near term, he will notice citation 533 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms of the House of Commons of Canada , sixth edition, which reminds us that:

Time allocation is a device for planning the use of time during the various stages of consideration of a bill rather than bringing the debate to an immediate conclusion.

That is what we have always tried to do here: schedule debates so that we can make decisions, have fair and adequate debate, and give members of Parliament an opportunity to decide questions. It is not to curtail debate; it is to schedule and facilitate decisions being made. I hope that the member will have regard for those rules, something that had escaped his predecessor.

However, I should say that I do look forward to working with him on our business in the future. That said—and I hope that he will not take personal offence to this—in our scheduling of these matters, we will continue to work off of the Gregorian calendar, not the Julian calendar.

Today, we will continue the third reading debate on Bill C-5, the Offshore Health and Safety Act. Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate on Vanessa’s law, Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act. Monday will see the third day of second reading debate on Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act.

That is one that I know he is a great supporter of.

Tuesday, April 1, shall be the first allotted day. It being April 1 after all, I assume that the NDP will ask us to debate one of its economic policies.

Finally, starting on Wednesday, we will debate our spring budget implementation bill to enact many of the important measures contained in economic action plan 2014, our low-tax plan for Canadians, as we make further progress on balancing the budget in 2015.

I might also add that with regard to the grain situation, Bill C-30 is now before the House. There have been very positive discussions among the parties to date. I hope that they will lead further to being able to have that bill passed through at least second reading on a fairly constructive basis. I hope those discussions will yield fruit, in which case there might be some change to the schedule I have presented to the House today.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, I am not an expert on this issue. I know some excellent members who are experts on the matter and who represent these regions: the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl and the member for St. John's East. They advocate for their communities and are very familiar with what is needed to improve this bill.

These members have told me that this is a good amendment and that they have a good understanding with their provincial counterparts. I think that if federal government representatives sat down a little more often with their provincial counterparts, they would understand that it is easy to sign agreements if you take the time to negotiate with them.

That is what I would tell my hon. colleague. My colleagues who sat on the committee are experts on the matter. They worked very hard and know their provincial counterparts. I am sure that we could reach an agreement very quickly.

I am pleased to support Bill C-5 because it is necessary and we have been waiting for it for more than 13 years, as I mentioned.

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

Mr. Speaker, it bears repeating that both provinces have already given assent to their respective bills to enact these changes, and they are very patiently waiting for Bill C-5 to pass through our Parliament and for this regime to come into force.

The member has suggested that amendments were brought forward. I wonder if he understands that by bringing forward amendments of this nature, it would have actually meant a delay in bringing this bill forward, because we would have had to go back to the provinces, and it would have left our workers, yet again, without the extra safety measures that Bill C-5 proposes.

I wonder if the member would like to speak to that.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-5, 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 bill has a very long title, but it is a very important bill and Canadians, particularly the NDP, have been waiting for it for over 13 years. We have been calling for the implementation of more health and safety standards for workers in the offshore oil and gas industry.

Before I begin speaking about the bill, I would like to point out the excellent work that my NDP colleagues have done in committee. They helped this bill move forward so that it could be examined today. Some of the members in question include the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, who did excellent work; the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue; the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, who worked extremely hard not only on natural resource issues but also on environmental issues and who has a great deal of knowledge in this field; the member for Nickel Belt; the member for St. John's East, who gave an excellent speech today; and the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, who also examined this bill.

I mention this because Canadians do not really know about the work that is done in committee. I often talk to my constituents in Drummond about the importance of the remarkable work the NDP does in committee. We always hope that that work will be as objective as possible, that it will be not be partisan and that it will be for the good of all Canadians.

My constituents know that I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development since soon after I was elected in 2011. For three years, I have been trying to work with my colleagues in such as way as to provide as much benefit as possible to the people in the greater Drummond area and throughout Canada in order to improve bills and conduct studies that will improve the quality of the environment and sustainable development.

The Standing Committee on Natural Resources examined Bill C-5 to improve the health and safety of workers in the offshore oil and gas industry. It is important to understand the significance of the work that was done by my NDP colleagues. They proposed an amendment to improve the bill by including a provision that would require the department to conduct a review of the implementation of the act within five years of the legislation coming into force.

This interesting bill makes improvements, which I will talk about a little later, but it could be fine-tuned. For that reason it is important to have a review period. However, we do support the bill at this stage. Any important bill includes a review period.

For example, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act includes a review period. In fact, the review is supposed to be happening now. I do not know what the Conservatives are doing. They are asleep at the wheel and are forgetting to review certain laws. In any case, I am concerned about their reviews, when they actually do conduct them.

When they reviewed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act they scrapped it altogether. We went from having thousands of environmental assessments to a few dozen. That has resulted in serious problems such as the approval of the Enbridge pipeline. Reversing the flow of the pipeline was done without a proper environmental assessment.

The same thing is happening with Bill C-5.This bill will not undergo a proper review because the Conservatives did not accept our amendment that the legislation be reviewed in five years.

Bill C-5 fixes long-standing problems with the legislation and also the authority to make regulations pertaining to occupational health and safety standards and their application to offshore oil and gas operations in the Atlantic.

The bill amends the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord in order to enshrine the workplace health and safety regime into the legislation. This is an important measure and the NDP will support it.

However, the bill does not respect recommendation 29 of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry. As hon. members know, there was a serious accident. Following that accident, the people of the region were very concerned. There was an inquiry led by the Hon. Robert Wells.

Bill C-5 does not include a provision to create an independent regulator. A number of my colleagues have mentioned that today. In fact, they have done excellent work. They have done a fine job of explaining the importance of the workers and showing concern for their health and safety, including the helicopter pilots and other members of the crew.

The bill does not have any provisions for creating an independent, stand-alone safety regulator or implementing separate safety divisions within petroleum company boards of directors.

It is truly disappointing because the NDP went to great lengths to ensure that the bill would be reviewed after five years. This could provide the opportunity to create an independent offshore authority. I am not sure what the Conservatives are afraid of, why they have this need to control everything and manage everything from their offices. This could be handed over to a stand-alone and independent regulator. That would help ensure better health and safety for our workers. We know that these people experience tough situations. They do dangerous work. They are very brave. These professionals do excellent work for their region and to take care of their families. However, we must ensure their health and safety.

This bill is a step in the right direction, but it does not include a provision for a five-year review, which would have allowed for the implementation of a stand-alone and independent authority. That is too bad.

Although the Conservatives refuse to implement recommendation 29 of the Wells inquiry, Bill C-5 is still a constructive and much-needed improvement to the current occupational health and safety regime for offshore areas because it enshrines practices into law. That is good news.

The NDP is very proud to support Bill C-5 because we have been calling for improvements to this regime for years. This bill has been a long time coming. For more than 13 years, we have been calling for this bill to move forward and for it to be implemented. Unfortunately, it is long overdue.

I would also like to mention that the NDP finds it very troubling that this work is not being done in collaboration with provincial governments more often. It is very important that the federal government respect provincial governments and its provincial counterparts.

Unfortunately, when it comes to health, the federal government imposes new approaches without sitting down with provincial health ministers. That is wrong. At least in this case it signed an agreement with its provincial counterparts. That is a good thing, and something that should happen all the time.

As I can see that I do not have much time left, I will answer any questions.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today and speak on Bill C-5 at third reading stage.

I wish to announce from the outset that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Drummond.

Of course, being from the west coast, I was not as familiar with the industry in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, which has taken off in the last generation. I was very impressed, therefore, when the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour and the member for St. John's East spoke so passionately about the impact the offshore oil and gas industry in their jurisdictions and reminded Canadians from coast to coast to coast just how important that industry is to our national economy. About 35% of Canada's light crude oil is being generated by that industry, and it is expanding.

I had the opportunity, I confess for the first time, to be in St. John's several months ago and to see the enormous impact that industry has had in that jurisdiction, and in Nova Scotia as well, and to learn how proud the people of that jurisdiction are with respect to the contribution it has made to their economy. For that reason, it becomes even more important for us address the issue of worker safety in that industry.

I was shocked to learn that there has been no statutory safety regime in either jurisdiction for a generation. Essentially, the industry has been operating without any kind of legislated jurisdiction or legislated regime for the protection of worker health and safety for a generation, but has been relying instead upon merely draft regulations. As my friend for St. John's East pointed out very accurately, the only thing that could be done in the event of a problem was to shut the whole thing down, which, of course, is often something regulators would be loath to do.

However, in place of that, we now have a very comprehensive bill before Parliament, finally. It is a bill that was made in collaboration with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador so as to provide a consistent regime to deal with this burgeoning industry. I think it is for that reason alone that the official opposition is in entire accord with the need to move on with the proposed legislation.

When I say move on, I would point out that it has taken over a decade to get us to this place with legislation. I understand and respect that there has been collaboration to work closely with the provinces in this regard, perhaps something that has not been done by the government to any great degree. However, I think that the proof is in the pudding, and we now have a regime to which the Province of Nova Scotia has given royal assent, as did the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in May of last year.

We are getting on with it, they are getting on with it, and the workers want us to get on with it. I see all Canadians would certainly understand the need to enact a regime as comprehensive as the one before us.

I should say that enforcement is really what is critical here. A number of important principles in the legislation have been spoken to by members opposite as well as members from the official opposition, and there are three principles that I think we would all subscribe to.

First of all, offshore occupational health and safety laws must provide workers with protections that are at least as good as those for onshore workers. There can be no doubt that is only fair and appropriate.

Second, there is the protection of the employees' right to know, to participate, and to refuse unsafe work, and in doing so to be safe from reprisal. This second principle is one that in the last two or three decades has been made a significant part of labour law in this country, and it is about time that the offshore workers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia enjoyed the same rights.

The third principle is the support for an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes shared responsibilities in the workplace. We can talk about laws and we can make laws, in this case with scores of pages, and then make many scores of regulations under the statute, but unless there is a culture of safety in the workplace, it really amounts to nothing.

As we examine a regime like this, the extent to which there is enforcement is also critical. It was Shakespeare who said, “...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. If this law is not implemented carefully, responsibly, and with that culture of health and safety that has been referred to, it really will be nothing more than paper, and no one wants it to be that way. No one wants it to be that way, when we look back in sadness on the Ocean Ranger disaster or the helicopter crash in 2009 that killed 17 people. We are dealing with the importance of a robust regulatory regime. That is what we are here to discuss.

At a broader level, this legislation is a great example of co-operative federalism at its best. The notion that we can sit down with the provinces, which have their own circle of jurisdiction, the federal government, which has its jurisdiction, and the offshore boards, federal and provincial, that have been created, and work together and produce something like this is one of the things that makes Canada such a great country. Our willingness to work together makes this a great country.

It is sad that it has taken this long. It does not appear to be a priority for the Conservative government. Given the delay, it does not appear to be the priority one would have expected, but nevertheless we are here and we are pleased to debate such an important piece of legislation.

I mentioned the three principles that I think are so essential to this legislation. I should salute the work of Mr. Justice Wells, who came up with a number of recommendations after the helicopter crash, which have been saluted by people on all sides of the House today. He worked hard. It is telling and it is sad, and we have heard this before in the debate today, that the recommendation he thought the most important is not part of this legislation.

Mr. Justice Wells states the following in his report, “I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire Report”. What is that recommendation? Recommendation no. 29 states that “...a new, independent, and stand-alone Safety Regulator be established to regulate safety in the C-NL offshore”.

If that were not considered feasible, Mr. Justice Wells gave an alternative that the government “...create a separate and autonomous Safety Division of C-NLOPB [the board], with a separate budget, separate leadership, and an organizational structure designed to deal only with safety matters”.

Mr. Justice Wells, the architect who brought this to the attention of the regulators so forcefully, said the most important thing is an independent, stand-alone regulator, and the Government of Canada sadly has refused to accept what he himself characterized as the most important recommendation in the entire report.

Obviously, we cannot be happy with this legislation entirely, notwithstanding that we finally have it, when such an important piece of the puzzle is missing, a piece of the puzzle that is found in so many of our sister jurisdictions with offshore oil and gas, the British with the North Sea, the Norwegians, Australia, and the United States now. Yet Canada does not think we need to go there.

If there is anything we understand from regulatory culture, it is the notion of regulatory capture. The need to have an independent board to do the job is something that most people, at least in other jurisdictions, seem to take for granted now. But for reasons that escape me, our government seems to think that is not adequate even though it had been sought by so many, the provinces, the workers, and the like. Sadly that is missing.

The bill could be much better but we will support it proudly because of the fact that the workers were involved. There were consultations. I just hope that going forward they will continue to be involved.

I wish there had been a way to have a five-year review, as sought at committee, because that has been done so effectively when other Conservative governments were around. The present Conservative government does not believe in that. Nevertheless, it is critical that we look at that in the future, as the bill will inevitably come forward for amendment. Maybe we could do it better. Maybe we could do what Mr. Justice Wells said we needed to do as the most important feature. Maybe we could do a better job of protecting those workers in those dangerous occupations off the shores of Atlantic Canada.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

First, in response to the member for Timmins—James Bay, some of the language in his point of order itself probably goes beyond what is necessary.

That said, the hon. member for Surrey North took great breadth in his speech. He referred to many issues that arguably are not directly related to Bill C-5 and wandered afield. The subsequent question from the member for Langley followed up on two of the points raised by the member for Surrey North, neither one of which would seem to have much to do with the matter before the House.

I am going to go to the member for Surrey North for a very brief response. However, I would like to remind all hon. members of the matter that is before the House, which is Bill C-5. Both the questions and the answers ought to refer to it.

The hon. member for Surrey North.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my constituents from Surrey North to speak to Bill C-5, the offshore health and safety act.

This bill is a culmination of over 12 years of negotiations that started back in 2001 between the federal government and the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Now, as we all know, no bill is perfect. This bill is certainly not perfect, but 13 years later this bill is well past due. I am glad to see that this important step forward is being taken.

It is far past time that this legislated offshore safety regime be put into place. All workers, whether they work onshore in our communities or offshore, deserve to work in a safe environment and to have their rights protected. This bill places the overall responsibility for occupational health and safety on the operator. This means that the employer is responsible for implementation and coordination, although employees are still expected to take all reasonable measures to comply with occupational health and safety measures.

There are basically three principles in this bill: first, the offshore occupational health and safety laws must provide workers with protections at least as good as those that exist for onshore workers; second, the protection of employees' rights; and third, support for an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes the shared responsibilities in the workplace.

These basic principles address protections that should be available to all workers. It is a shame that offshore workers have had to wait this long for these protections to be afforded to them.

It comes as no shock to me that the Conservatives waited this long to bring this legislation to the House. This is not the first time we have seen the Conservatives drag their feet and delay long overdue legislation.

However, now that we have finally reached the point where we can give these offshore workers the protection they deserve, this bill represents a very necessary improvement to the current offshore health and safety regime, by finally placing safety practices in legislation.

My NDP colleagues and I have been calling for this type of strengthened regime for several years, and we are proud to support Bill C-5 at this stage.

I mentioned earlier that this bill is not perfect, and I would like to explain my comment. The glaring deficiency in this bill is the federal government's refusal to implement recommendation 29 of the Wells inquiry. The Wells inquiry took place after the March 2009 crash of a helicopter approximately 30 nautical miles from St. John's, that left 17 dead and 1 lone survivor.

Before Justice Wells made recommendation 29, he said:

I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire Report.

This is a direct quote from the author of this inquiry who made this recommendation. He pointed out that recommendation 29 was “the most important” of all the recommendations. Here is what it said:

29. (a) It is recommended that a new, independent, and standalone Safety Regulator....

An alternative option was also recommended in this report. However, unfortunately, Bill C-5 fails to establish either of these options. It seems the government is not committed to establishing this necessary reform and closing the gap that remains.

On this side of the House, we are committed to working with the Nova Scotia government and the Newfoundland and Labrador government to further strengthen health and safety by working towards the creation of an independent stand-alone safety regulator, as recommended by the Wells inquiry.

As Canadians, we should strive to set an example for the rest of the world. We should be leaders on the global stage. However, time and time again, we are faced with examples showing that we are not keeping up with global best practices. This has been apparent.

I made a speech just the other day when we debated Bill C-22. Canada is not keeping pace with the international standards set for nuclear and offshore gas liability. I will give an example, specifically how we are not even making the polluters pay for it themselves. I talked about my son and my daughter and the liability issues that are in Bill C-22.

The current liability for offshore gas, oil, or nuclear disasters is about $75 million, which we would now increase to $1 billion. We have seen the nuclear disaster in Japan and the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Recently, we had the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on the west coast, where I am from. We know for a fact that $250 billion is the rough estimate now of the cost of the disaster in Japan. The cost is in the tens of billions of dollars in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is the same for the Valdez disaster in the Pacific Ocean off B.C.

My point is that we are increasing the liability for these disasters to $1 billion for the corporations, the people who are producing the gas and oil, and the private industries that are operating our nuclear plants and so on. I will use an analogy from my own home shortly. The sum of $1 billion is not enough to clean up the mess that has caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. In other words, corporations are getting a free ride if there is a disaster, because guess who would be left holding the bag? It would be the taxpayers, Canadians, who are held liable for the rest of the cleanup.

We are not looking at other countries and the standards that are out there. We could look at other countries, such as Germany and other European countries, that have substantially higher liability for these issues.

I used the example of my kids the other day. My son is seven years old. He makes a mess and he does not want to clean it up. He cleans up a little bit of it, and he wants his sister to clean up the rest of it. His sister comes to me and says no, it is his mess and he should clean it up. My wife and I have explained to my son that it is his mess and that he needs to clean it up. He cannot pass on his mess to someone else.

That is what we are doing. We are not looking at other standards. That is what we are doing with regard to the liability issues for nuclear disasters, oil, and gas.

We need to look at other governments among our partners, including south of the border and other nations, to find ways of improving it. That is the case in this particular situation, where one of the major recommendations is to have an independent regulator, as Justice Wells pointed out. We need a new independent and stand-alone safety regulator, and we need to look at what other countries are doing for best practices. We have not done our job here. That was one of the recommendations made by the Wells inquiry. It clearly pointed out that this was the most important recommendation. Again, it was ignored by the Conservatives.

Countries like the U.K., Australia, Norway, and the United States have all recognized the value of an independent offshore regulator and have taken steps to put it into action. Why should the Canadian offshore gas industry and Canadian workers be treated any differently? That is my question for the Conservatives. Why should our offshore industries and workers be treated any differently from their counterparts in our partner countries around the world, whether in Europe or south of the border?

Instead of setting an example, with Canadians being leaders in a particular area with other countries to follow, we are lagging behind. It is time we reversed this trend.

Here is another example. We are world leaders when it comes to conducting elections. We are viewed as a model for other countries. We also learn from other countries. We use some of their best practices and they use some of ours. I am very proud as a Canadian that our election model is used worldwide to conduct fair elections. What are we doing in our country? We have had the top three electoral authorities, the elections commissioner, Elections Canada people, and Mr. Neufeld, testify at committee that the changes being brought forward by the Conservatives in the unfair elections act will not strengthen our current electoral system. In fact, they will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Canadians. That is not an example we want to set. We want to go in the right direction. The right direction is to improve the systems that we have in place and to ensure that not only are our democratic values protected, but also our offshore workers, so that they have the same safety level as onshore workers. It is a very disturbing trend that we are witnessing from the government. We need to improve the safety of our workers, onshore and offshore.

Not only does the bill not provide an independent, stand-alone safety regulator, or an autonomous safety division within the petroleum board, but our efforts to provide for a review of the bill in five years were also voted down by the Conservatives at committee. This, yet again, demonstrates the Conservatives' lack of interest in further strengthening the bill. Allowing for a review of the bill in five years' time would have provided an opportunity to re-evaluate whether an independent safety regulator were needed. Even if the government did not put in the safety regulator in the first place, we asked at committee for a review after five years. Perhaps they would find evidence that we do need an independent safety regulator.

When we talk about evidence, it is very clear that science and facts do not really figure into the Conservative equation, whether on the environment or jobs. The government is using Kijiji facts to inflate the number of jobs created in the country. I have never actually used Kijiji, so I looked it up today. It is a website for people to trade household goods. In fact, one can actually buy a used tie on Kijiji, or used shoes, and there are other things created on the site. The fact that the government, which is allergic to research and facts, uses Kijiji of all websites to inflate the number of jobs available in the country makes ones suspicious of the other facts brought forward by the government.

I talked about the unfair elections act. The Conservatives say there have been many irregularities and that we need to strengthen our Elections Canada Act. They say “We need to make it fair, that there have been 15,000 irregularities.” When asked how many people were charged since Confederation with fraudulent use of voter identification cards and voter fraud, the answer is zero. The government cannot come up with any examples. Oh, it does have examples it makes up. I know that the member for Mississauga—Streetsville brought up some facts that he had to retract because they were false. Those are the kinds of facts and figures that Conservatives make up. It is unfortunate that they do this.

The real facts would be for them to concede that they are not appointing the regulator now, but that we should further evaluate the issue. That would make sense, that we would look at it five years from now and re-evaluate the situation to see if we needed a regulator. But the Conservatives turned that down. I have been here for a number of years now and we have seen thousands and thousands of recommendations made at committee to improve bills. We have heard from expert witnesses and stakeholders begging the government to make changes that would be beneficial to the stakeholders, the very people the laws would affect, and we have seen very few if any amendments adopted at committee stage.

I know that was not always the case. Usually members of Parliament were able to propose amendments to bills and improve them. That is the work of Parliament, to improve the legislation brought forward. That is my job, to bring forward the views of my constituents and the very people who are being affected by this. But, unfortunately, the Conservatives, who get their marching orders from the Prime Minister's Office, are told how they should go about this. We are seeing the same thing happen with the unfair elections act at committee. Reasonable amendments have been provided to improve the bill, but the Conservatives have again chosen to reject the amendments on a technical basis. Due diligence and good governance require the review of legislation, particularly in this case where we are dealing with complex legislation involving multiple levels of government. The behaviour here is consistent with the Conservatives' unwillingness to consider amendments that would strengthen the legislation coming to the floor of the House. It is not the first time we have seen this, and I can guarantee it will not be the last.

Finally, I want to point out how refreshing it is to see a bill that represents the collaborative efforts of the provinces and the federal government, although it has taken eight or nine years to bring it to this stage. I am happy that finally the Conservatives were able to collaborate with the provinces.

I can give a couple of examples where Conservatives have failed to collaborate. I would like to announce to the House that I am very pleased that Port Metro Vancouver is up and running. Port Metro Vancouver is one of the largest ports in Canada. It employees directly or indirectly 60,000 workers. There has been a strike going on for the last four weeks. This dispute has been simmering since 2005. The truckers had brought to the government's attention over the last eight or nine years some of the issues they were having locally. What have governments been doing? They have done nothing over the last seven years to address these issues.

Last week, the Prime Minister went to Vancouver and said it was not a federal problem, but a B.C. problem. The B.C. government said that it was not its problem, that it was actually the federal government's problem. So with a problem that has been simmering for eight or nine years, the federal government and the provincial government could not figure out whose problem it was and we have lost billions of dollars as a result from the strike. I would put the blame squarely on the Conservative government and its inability to collaborate with the province.

Again, this bill could be greatly strengthened. One of the things it lacks is recommendation 29, which calls for an independent regulator.

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

Mr. Speaker, both provinces have already given royal assent to their respective bills to enact these changes, as has been noted. They are waiting patiently for Bill C-5 to pass through the House of Commons and come into force.

Justice Wells appeared at the natural resources committee and said he was pleased with the legislation. He stated:

Somebody has worked hard—more than one person, I suspect—on this bill. I know that it's been under consideration for a number of years. Quite honestly, I think it's a good job and I think it will help to formalize some of the concepts that people knowledgeable about the industry and the regulatory people have thought about for some time. To see it enshrined—I hope to see it enshrined—in legislation is a good thing.

My question for the member opposite is this. Did he read the transcript of that meeting, and does he have any comments to make?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to weigh in on this important issue again. I had the opportunity to speak on this at second reading, at which time I indicated my support for this legislation and for the measures. I was pleased that the two levels of government, the two provincial governments and the federal government, were finally able to reach agreement. The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Province of Nova Scotia passed mirror legislation, and the federal government is now following suit.

I want to focus my presentation today on where we go next. It is extremely important that we get the best piece of legislation that we can to serve the purposes laid out in the legislation. However, if we do not have the enforcement and the political will to make it happen then, frankly, we will go back to the decades when the offshore on the east cost was covered by draft regulations. We will go back to something we see far too often as it relates to private industry, in particular in the fields that are so dangerous. I speak of the whole practice of voluntary compliance. In that, governments expect the companies and individuals involved in any particular industry to be safe and careful and to not put workers at risk.

We know that public sector and private sector entities conduct risk analysis at every opportunity, before they put in any constraints on their practices whatsoever. Before a private sector company introduces any, in this case, safety measures or the use of safety equipment, it will do a very careful analysis on what the chances are that anything is going to happen, that there are going to be problems, that there is a risk there will be a loss of limb and life and, even at that point, what the exposure of that company is to liability.

That is why it is so important for governments to take their responsibility seriously in protecting people who are not protected, whether they are citizens, customers, clients, or workers. In the case of the Ocean Ranger, the 84 people who lost their lives, and in the case of the Cougar helicopter, the 17 people who lost their lives, nobody represented them. Nobody went to the effort to ensure there were constraints on the private sector companies that controlled what was going to happen to them when those workers at their jobs were carrying out their responsibilities. That is why it is incumbent upon us, not only to pass legislation to prevent these kinds of things, but also to ensure that the legislation is enforced, to ensure there is the political will in place, and that there are provisions in the legislation to ensure that people or companies that contravene provisions of the legislation are held accountable.

We had a terrible tragedy in Nova Scotia, in 1992, where 26 miners lost their lives. There was a royal commission held that made a number of recommendations. It led to Bill C-45, which was passed in this House, I believe in 2004.

It was called the Westray bill, and it was done to assign corporate responsibility. That legislation makes all decision-makers in a company responsible for the results of bad decisions or decisions that lead to the loss of life. Yet, since 2004, 22 years after that disaster happened, there have been a couple of charges but absolutely no convictions.

That underlines my point. We need to make sure that the responsibilities are laid out in the legislation. We need enforcement. We also need to make sure that people are held accountable. Ultimately, it all comes down to political will.

This legislation would only take us part of the way. We are only beginning to move in the right direction toward ensuring that the industry has a proper health and safety regime, as well as regulations.

However, our responsibility does not end here. We need to ensure that as development continues we work harder to make sure the people working in this environment are protected, and that the environment itself is protected.

I want to refer to Lana Payne, the Atlantic director of Unifor, who testified at the natural resources committee. She said that “Canada is still far behind other industrialized oil economies such as Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia...[and] the United States” in having “powerful stand-alone authority in charge of safety and the environment...”.

The member who spoke before me seemed to suggest that we do not have a stand-alone regulator here. We do not need it. It is a small jurisdiction. It is smaller than the Arctic or the west coast or some of these other countries. The member should say that to the 82 families who lost loved ones when the Ocean Ranger went down. He should say that to the 17 families of the workers who lost their lives when the Cougar helicopter went down.

If development is going to be conducted off the coast of our country, then we need to ensure that proper protections are in place, as in other countries. We have not done enough. We need to do better. We in the New Democratic Party will do everything in our power to ensure that this country does a better job in this area.

It is important for the federal government to continue working with the provinces and offshore boards in this area. There is no doubt about that.

I wish the government had considered the amendment that was introduced by our members on the natural resources committee. That amendment would have seen a review by the minister after five years. We would have known whether the legislation was actually accomplishing, not only what it set out to accomplish, but whether the government was showing the political will to enforce it and to hold people accountable. That happens with other legislation. It is not new. Things change, and try as we might, we might miss provisions that we should have perhaps picked up on. A five-year review would indicate whether we had run into any difficulties. A five-year review would ensure that 10 years or 13 years out we have done our due diligence with respect to making this happen.

I will refer to the intervention by my friend Dr. Susan Dodd, who wrote the book The Ocean Ranger: Remaking the Promise of Oil . Susan lost her brother when the Ocean Ranger went down. I spoke at some length about Susan's work in this area at second reading, but let me say again how much I value her opinion and the exhaustive research that she engaged in to prepare her book.

Before committee, Susan rightly identified that the “failure to regulate leads not only to the loss of life and the destruction of the environment, but also to the public's losing confidence in the legitimacy of government”. Disasters, such as the Ocean Ranger, Westray—and I referred to the explosion of the coal mine in Pictou County, in 1992—and the Deepwater Horizon, are also political disasters. People appropriately asked why it was that regulations did not exist or were not strong enough. Why were there weaknesses in the system and why were they not addressed years before?

Too often, changes to health and safety come about as a reaction to an event rather than as a preventative measure. I would suggest that this needs to be changed.

When I was preparing for these remarks, I looked at the Westray example. I was a member of the legislature in 1992 when that disaster happened. Within the next day or so, I sat with families in Stellarton who were trying to understand the magnitude of the disaster and whether their loved ones might still be alive. In the initial days of that disaster, it was a rescue effort.

We had a commission of inquiry, which did not table its reports until 1998. There were 74 recommendations, and section 73 led to Bill C-45.

I talked abut the need to hold decision-makers accountable. In the Westray situation, they found that there were decisions made or not made that directly led to the explosion and the loss of life. Everyone recognized that the people who had the responsibility for making decisions did not make those decisions, or they made decisions understanding that a result there could be a disaster, an explosion, which happened. Those people need to be held accountable, and that is what led to Bill C-45.

Here we are 22 years later, and we still have not been able to hold people accountable for these kinds of workplace disasters. That is why I worry very much about our sense of satisfaction when we pass a piece of legislation like this.

We have been at this for 13 years. We worked with the other jurisdictions and we got it through. When it passes through this House and finally receives royal assent, we have done our job. However, that is just the beginning. That is the point I am trying to make; it is simply just the beginning. We need to do so much more to make sure that we fulfill our responsibilities in representing the people of this country.

Let me make it clear. I certainly do not have all the answers on how we protect workers in the offshore industry or how we protect our environment. That is why I feel compelled, as an individual MP and a member of this House, to say we need to be ever vigilant and be always listening and always paying attention, so we can ensure that the right thing is done, that we correct our mistakes, and that we move quickly, because we are responsible to represent not only people who work in that industry but also the environment, in the event of oil spills. As my colleague from St. John's East said, there will be a third rig in operation in 2017, even farther off the coast of Newfoundland. They are exploring, again, off the coast of Nova Scotia and in the gulf. It may be inevitable that there will be further development of these resources, but we cannot proceed without ensuring that we are protecting the people who work in the industry and protecting the environment, because once those disasters happen, those lives are lost and that environment is damaged, in many cases, forever.

Let me make a couple of suggestions.

First, I call upon the current government, and any government, to support the recommendation that has gone before Transport Canada to ensure that all airplanes and helicopters that are used for search and rescue and to transport workers to and from the oil rigs must have the capability to operate for an hour after they have no oil or have run dry. That has been a recommendation--in fact, it was 30 minutes, I believe—and that recommendation has still not been put in place. Even after it was determined to be one of the problems that led to the disaster with the Cougar helicopter, that still has not been implemented. I think it is extremely important that we ensure regulation is put into place. We know this is a fairly standard requirement for helicopters that operate off the coast, to give them time to land safely.

Second, the government needs to reverse its cuts to search and rescue and ensure that our SAR teams have the equipment necessary, and in working order, to carry out their missions as quickly as possible. These are life and death situations that these people are responding to in Atlantic Canada and around our coasts. It is too often the case that search and rescue missions are hampered because our dated equipment is not functioning or the teams are unable to arrive in a timely manner.

I think it is important that I also make a plug for the environment, in this respect. As I have already said, Canada is lagging behind once again. While the government has recently introduced legislation to increase oil and gas spill liability to $1 billion, this amount pales in comparison with the actual costs of the spill cleanup and the impact on our environment and local economies.

To wrap up, there is still a lot of work to be done to strengthen the safety of the offshore industry for our workers and for our environment. While Bill C-5 is a step in the right direction, I think it is incumbent upon the government to continue to work with the provinces, the stakeholders, and industry to prevent future disasters.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to follow some of my colleagues in the debate on Bill C-5. Having been a member of the natural resources committee for eight years, and having now left it, this was the last major piece of work I had the opportunity to work on with my colleagues from all parties. Unfortunately, I had moved prior to getting to clause-by-clause review, which would have been interesting. Nonetheless, I got a chance to listen to a lot of the testimony before committee. We had some great witnesses. We had very cordial discussion and a lot of good feedback. It was a good committee experience.

What I am going to talk about today is the importance of the offshore. I will spend a few moments on that. Then what I would like to do is to talk about what led to Bill C-5 and why it is important. Then I would like to talk about some of the major things the bill does and some of the comments made by Justice Wells.

Certainly, as a lot of people have said in testimony earlier today, we know how important natural resources are to our country, and specifically the east coast. As my colleague, the member for Halifax West, just pointed out a minute ago, we have a lot of people working on the offshore and the potential for expansion of that resource opportunity not only helps the folks in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, but also P.E.I. and New Brunswick, whether it be by providing services or by labourers actually going there. In some cases, it is a lot better trip for some of our families to be able to go to an east coast location, as opposed to travelling west.

For that reason, we want to continue to ensure that Canada's natural resource sectors remain open to investment that is market oriented and in the long-term interests of Canadians. We will ensure that the jobs, opportunities, and economic growth created by our natural wealth are available to all Canadians. In the Atlantic offshore, this wealth is chiefly in the energy sector, particularly oil and natural gas. The strength of Canada's energy sector is well established, but as strong as Canada's energy sector is today, it offers even greater potential for the future.

Canadians living in Atlantic Canada already know what a difference a strong energy industry can make to communities' quality of life. Offshore oil and gas has literally transformed the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador. For example, in 2011, the energy sector in Newfoundland and Labrador employed nearly 5,000 people and accounted for roughly one-third of provincial nominal GDP. Between 1997 and 2013, the province collected about $7.8 billion in statutory royalties from offshore oil and gas. Now, as we begin 2014, the future is even brighter. The offshore energy sector in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia is still growing and the industry continues to invest billions of dollars in new energy projects.

Our government supports energy infrastructure projects that will create jobs and generate economic growth for Canadians, but it will do so only if these projects can be proven to be safe for Canadians and only after we have the proper reviews.

Our commitment to responsible resource development is made for environmental reasons as well as economic ones. Our plan will ensure that there is stronger protection by introducing tough new financial penalties for companies that do no comply with environmental regulations, and establishes new measures to strengthen Canada's world class pipeline and marine safety regimes. However, we have to remember that one of the major regulatory items is to protect people through a rigorous offshore safety regime. That is why we introduced Bill C-5, to ensure that offshore industries can carry out their activities safely.

I would like to read into the record some testimony from Mr. Jeff Labonté, the director general of the energy safety and security branch at the Department of Natural Resources. He said:

The work on the legislative package before Parliament got under way almost a dozen years ago. It was following an accident in Nova Scotia in which a worker in a workplace was killed. In that particular accident, the accord acts originally separated operational safety, the operations of the technical units and things that are happening in the offshore, which was imbedded within the accord acts, and occupational health and safety as a separate area which fell under the provincial jurisdiction.

All of a sudden, we had a grey area here where it was hard to determine who was actually responsible, what would happen and who would actually regulate this going forward. That led to a 12-year process and our Bill C-5.

The bill is approximately 260 to 270 pages long. Members who were on the committee and actually went through the review know that roughly 200 of those pages took occupational health and safety regulations out and put them into the accord acts. It was to mirror the legislation between the provinces and the federal government. We want the offshore industries to abide by the most stringent standards. We need to identify and clarify things, and that was the reason we did that.

Interestingly enough, some of the earlier comments were about why this took so long. It started in 2002 and it was a 12-year process. A lot of us in the House, even if we have only been here a short period of time, understand that sometimes it can take a while to get federal-provincial deals negotiated. What ended up happening is that it went through a period until about 2007, when there was a realization that further work was needed on the governance aspect of the bill. It had to go back, and obviously there were a lot of iterations between the provinces and the federal government to make sure that the legislation was mirrored properly.

Those things took some time. We had some governmental issues with respect to the minority governments that happened during those times.

I believe it was under an NDP government in Nova Scotia that the legislation passed, and a PC government in Newfoundland. They are now waiting for us to do our process with Bill C-5.

The accord acts already provide the regulatory cornerstone for all oil and gas activities in the Atlantic offshore. They give the independent regulators, the two offshore boards we have been talking about this morning, the legal authority to regulate oil and gas activities on behalf of the Governments of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

They clearly establish the health and safety requirements within the accord acts. For the essential matters of occupational health and safety, and operational safety in the offshore, Bill C-5 fully clarifies the roles and responsibilities of all concerned parties, governments, regulators, employers, and workers.

The legislation also has other practical benefits and gives new powers to the offshore inspectors to further enhance safety. For example, inspectors will now be authorized to inspect anything, take samples, and meet privately with individuals. Further, inspectors will now have the power to conduct compliance audits on the vessels used to transport workers, and if the workers themselves have any safety concerns, Bill C-5 allows them to refuse to be transported to the offshore sites.

I just want to speak to the issue of the chief safety officer's power. It has been strengthened. In my experience in construction projects before coming into this area, it was always my understanding, whenever I went to a construction site, that the chief safety officer had full ability to shut a site down. They could do that carte blanche. That is independence. Even if those safety officers actually reported to project managers, they really had a higher calling and a higher power.

This safety officer, referring to some of the testimony from Mr. Jeff Labonté, said:

The final area that I will cover is that of the chief safety officer. First, to ensure that safety considerations are always represented, the legislation proposes that the position of the chief safety officer can never be held by a CEO of the board. In addition, a chief safety officer would have to review and provide written recommendations related to safety on all operational authorizations. This would formalize a process that both boards have already been following and is a practice of ensuring that safety is a priority. Chief safety officers would also be granted the power to allow regulatory substitutions.

As everyone knows, when we start talking about these regulatory substitutions, technology moves very fast in the offshore environment. For example, if a new piece of equipment comes out that is going to make workers safer, a chief safety officer would have the ability to authorize its approval to substitute it for something already out there.

Those are important things to make sure that our workers are safe, which this legislation and the regulations keep up.

During his appearance at the natural resources committee in December, Justice Wells spoke about the legislation. He said:

Somebody has worked hard—more than one person, I suspect—on this bill. I know that it's been under consideration for a number of years. Quite honestly, I think it's a good job and I think it will help to formalize some of the concepts that people knowledgeable about the industry and the regulatory people have thought about for some time. To see it enshrined—I hope to see it enshrined—in legislation is a good thing.

A couple of things impressed me most. One is that the bill talks about and mandates the involvement of workers in the processes of safety. That was something that was important to me during the two years and three or four months that I was the inquiry commissioner.

Justice Wells was very clear in the committee that he was pleased with the offshore health and safety legislation. He was also clear that good has come of the government's adoption of his recommendations.

We also talked at length at committee with two individuals. They were Mr. Scott Tessier, who is the chair and CEO of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, and Mr. Stuart Pinks, who is the CEO of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. We had a significant opportunity to question those folks. In fact, one of them was actually a former chief safety officer. I asked him about the qualifications of the chief safety officers, the kinds of things they do, and the process. He said that he was the chief safety officer for a number of years and that there is a strict selection process for chief safety officers. They are often long-tenured employees who stay with these boards for very long periods of time and build up institutional knowledge so that they are able to continue doing their jobs effectively.

Some of the other things they talked about were privacy requirements. They are not allowed to publish certain types of things when it comes to safety. With this legislation, when it comes to safety, they would be able to publish this for the public.

A lot of what was said was that it is not just for the actual workers on the site but for their families as well. We always need to be concerned about their families. They should be able to see that everything is safe. What is actually happening is important to the families, as well.

Justice Wells and the two CEOs also talked about safety forums, which have now started. They have just conducted the fifth of these safety forums. They received a tremendous amount of feedback from the workers who now, as part of this important piece of the legislation, have three major rights. They have the right to know, the right to participate in the discussions, and the right to refuse dangerous work. They are all important aspects for these workers. These safety forums allow for these types of discussions to happen and for the appropriate actions to take place. I talked previously about the safety equipment and substitutions.

There was a lot of good feedback. The Unifor representative talked about the safety regulator. I am sure that someone will ask me that question during the questions and comments.

In summary, there is no doubt that Bill C-5 would significantly enhance worker safety in the offshore by creating a much more transparent safety regime, with clear responsibilities for all involved. Our Conservative government worked with our provincial partners on this. I want to emphasize that this was a partnership, because this legislation has to be mirrored at the federal and provincial levels. It would give us a much more modern, efficient, and stringent offshore safety regime, one that is supported by strong laws and standards that are second to none.

The Conservative government is committed to freer trade and to maintaining an open marketplace that welcomes investment. It is committed to providing a regulatory regime for major projects that is fair, transparent, and predictable. It is committed to enhancing Canadian competitiveness in the economic sector.

I am encouraged and really pleased to see that members from the opposite side are going to support this bill. It represents a big and important move of the yardstick forward in terms of offshore health and safety for our workers and in terms of the well-being of their families. I appreciate their support. Hopefully, we will be able to get this passed quickly.

[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 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.

[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.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for carefully outlining the aspect of Bill C-5 dealing primarily with the occupational health and safety issue. She also responded earlier to a question regarding the number of workers who benefit from oil and gas production on offshore rigs.

I think that Canadians probably often think of the oil sands as the place from where all the oil is coming. I wonder if the minister would tell us what percentage of oil from offshore oil and gas development Canadians rely on.

I think it is important to realize not only the impact of oil on jobs and opportunities for Canadians, but also the energy needs of Canadians. It is important, first of all, that we have good, safe regulations to protect our workers. It is also important that we have access to good quality oil products.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand why the minister would refuse to answer a very simple question. I will try to ask it in the simplest way possible.

Why was recommendation 29 from the Wells report not included in Bill C-5? It is a simple question. Can she answer it?

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, I know that in my riding of London North Centre, jobs and safety are very important to my constituents. Just recently, I was happy to attend a joint announcement by GDLS and the Minister of International Trade of one of the largest contracts in the history of Canada, one that will result in the employment of over 3,000 people.

In the minister's speech, she mentioned that we need better safeguards, that workers need protection and that their safety is number one. Here, could the minister explain how important the offshore oil and gas industry is to Canada and what would be the most effective change in Bill C-5.

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

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to add my voice to support this worthy legislation.

If there is one thing our government has been crystal clear about when it comes to energy development, it is that public health and safety and environmental protection are paramount. This is the very essence of reasonable resource development.

There is no question we are determined to create high-quality jobs, economic growth, and long-term prosperity for all Canadians, and the energy sector has certainly delivered that to Atlantic Canadians in recent years.

Since the oil and gas industry began operating offshore in Newfoundland and Labrador in the late 1960s, the region's economy has been transformed. In 2010, the industry generated wages, salaries, and benefits worth $291 million in the province of Newfoundland alone. Not only does the sector clearly make a major contribution to the livelihoods of workers, but it also improves the standard of living of all residents in the region, and there is also no debate that we recognize that it would be irresponsible to promote development without the assurance that the health and safety of our citizens and the protection of our environment will be fully addressed. That is precisely what Bill C-5 is designated to do. It would better safeguard Atlantic offshore oil and gas workers.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers reports that over 5,000 individuals are currently employed in the oil and gas industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. Almost 1,000 more work in Nova Scotia's petroleum sector, and the potential is great for even more jobs and economic growth in the near future. Recent offshore oil and gas discoveries are bringing a new wave of activity into the Atlantic provinces.

There is all the more reason, then, for Bill C-5. Workers in the industry need to be protected, given the dangerous conditions associated frequently with their jobs.

Under the Canada Labour Code, workers are protected from hazards in the workplace. This protection includes the fundamental right to refuse dangerous work. As was underscored by the tragic March 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491 ferrying oil workers to offshore rigs and by the catastrophic sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig in 1982, worker safety must be job number one.

I can assure the House that our government is committed to ensuring the health and safety of Canadian workers and the protection of the environment. That is why we are introducing this new regime for Atlantic offshore workplaces.

Before outlining these improvements in detail, let me first explain where the federal government fits in this picture.

The Government of Canada shares responsibility for the management of the offshore with the Governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. These responsibilities are laid out in bilateral accords with each province, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act.

Canada's Atlantic offshore oil and gas industry is regulated by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, as well as the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. These boards ensure that operators and drilling contractors comply with the requirements of their respective implementation acts and exercise due diligence to prevent spills in Canada's offshore.

The Atlantic accords have been in place since the 1980s and are no longer sufficient to reflect contemporary requirements. They require modernization. The labour program, along with representatives from Natural Resources Canada, provincial energy and labour departments, and the provinces' offshore petroleum boards have identified and agreed to key areas for improvement.

First, the legislation places authority for occupational health and safety within the accord acts. If adopted, this legislation would establish an occupational health and safety framework within the Atlantic accord acts.

The new regime would apply to worker safety on-site at offshore rigs, as well as to workers in transit to or from offshore platforms.

The new regime would apply both to worker safety on site at an offshore rig as well as to workers in transit to or from an offshore platform. It would be jointly overseen by the Minister of Natural Resources and provincial occupational health and safety ministers for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It would be enforced by their individual offshore petroleum boards.

The boards would be responsible for verifying that companies have adequate plans in place to protect their employees and to avoid dangers. This includes everything from ensuring the safe handling of hazardous materials to proper procedures related to the operation of equipment and managing facilities. Using audits and inspections, we would confirm that all applicable health and safety requirements were met and demand correction if deficiencies were found. As well, the boards would be granted increased authority, such as enforcement powers for occupational health and safety officers.

These include the powers of inspection and investigation, warrant provisions and creative sentencing measures in case of dangerous situations.

Under Bill C-5, the Minister of Labour would provide ongoing federal labour expertise, such as the development of regulations, the issuance of directives to the boards, and recommendations on the appointments of special officers.

Special officers would be appointed to avoid a serious, imminent risk to the health and safety of offshore workers.

Such a scenario would proceed following joint approval and appointment by the pertinent provincial ministers and the Minister of Natural Resources, following a recommendation by the Minister of Labour.

Along with the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister of Labour would also co-appoint six members of a 13-member advisory council to be made up of employers, employees, and the two levels of government. The council would provide a forum for the exchange of ideas about occupational health and safety issues to ensure the effectiveness of this legislation.

Bill C-5 also introduces consequential amendments to part II of the Canada Labour Code. In the event of an accident, the bill would extend the time limit to launch a prosecution from one year to two years, consistent with the occupational health and safety legislation in many provinces. The Minister of Labour would also have the right to disclose information to the public regarding occupational health and safety.

The amendments would also give the Minister of Labour the authority to share information with federal and provincial government departments as well as with international organizations if the minister deems it to be in the interests of occupational health and safety or in the public interest overall. This would make it easier to share information during a coroner's inquest or a provincial prosecution. I want to be clear, however, that personal information would continue to be protected.

I should point out several minor amendments to the legislation since it has been debated at second reading.

Most amendments are technical in nature, such as putting the word “Canada” in the title of the regulations and renumbering the subtexts of the act that were incorrectly numbered.

Some were needed to harmonize federal and provincial legislation. For instance, we had to replace the provincial “Occupational Health and Safety Act” in Nova Scotia with the correct new name of its Labour Board Act, as this province has amended its legislation recently. Federal and provincial legislation obviously must mirror each other.

Several amendments were required as a result of Bill C-4, the second budget implementation act, and changes to part II of the Canada Labour Code.

The changes proposed under the Canada Labour Code would make coordinating amendments. “Minister of Labour” would now replace the terms “health and safety officer” or “regional health and safety officer” to reflect the minister's authority to delegate powers, duties, and functions previously conferred to health and safety officers. Let me be clear that through the delegation process, decisions will continue to be made by health and safety officers with the necessary expertise.

Coordination is required around the protections within the code regarding the minister giving testimony in civil proceedings, and these amendments now refer to “civil and administrative proceedings”, which include arbitration hearings.

The improvements I have outlined respond to input received in extensive consultations in 2010 and 2011. The provinces and industry and employee groups have all expressed strong support for the changes we have proposed. They have done so because they recognize that these changes would ensure that Canada's offshore industries will operate safely and to the highest environmental standards.

Bill C-5 would create a modern occupational health and safety regime that is relevant and responsive to today's offshore oil and gas reality, and, most importantly, it would provide robust protection for Canada's oil and gas workers, ensuring their safety and health in the workplace.

Thousands of Atlantic Canadian workers are looking to us to ensure their well-being and continued prosperity. Therefore, I urge all parties to support the bill and make these amendments the law of the land.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-5, 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, as reported with amendments from the committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. whip for the opposition for her very kind comments about the abilities on this side of the House with regard to procedure. Of course, I am only as good as the team that I have.

However, I will say that one thing I have tried to outline and to make clear over some period of time is that the use of time allocation is very distinct from the use of closure. We have chosen an approach in this government to use time allocation as a scheduling device to set an amount of time that we believe is appropriate for debate on any particular issue, which, as the hon. member in her own comments confirmed, in some cases results in even more time being allocated than is necessary for debate.

One of the benefits, though, is that the time does not have to be used. If all speakers complete their discussion of the subject, the debate can collapse and we can move on to other matters. So, really, no time is to be lost from that approach. It is a very positive thing, one that allows certainty for the benefit of all members about how much debate we will have, when votes will happen, and when decisions will be made. That is the most important thing for us in our work up here: making decisions and getting the job done.

As for this morning, I know that the NDP keeps seeing conspiracies and ghosts behind curtains, particularly the House leader for the NDP, who has that concern.

I think everyone knows that the only time one can move these time allocation motions—and we do not need to have a great command of the Standing Orders to know this—is at the start of government orders, at the start of the day. So I really had no choice.

However, the committee had considerable flexibility, which it did exercise. There was no conspiracy. There was no obstruction.

I hope that the opposition House leader will take the benefit of the two weeks to calm down, hopefully look around, see that there are no people waiting behind every curtain and every tree, out to get him, and that some of the conspiracies he imagines are simply not there. It will lower his blood pressure. It will make his life much more comfortable, in total.

I know that the opposition whip will share that advice from me, with him.

This afternoon we will continue debating Bill C-20, Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, at second reading.

Tomorrow, we will conclude the second reading debate on Bill C-25, Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act.

Then, we will return to our constituencies, where we will have a chance to reconnect with our real bosses.

When we return on Monday, March 24, the House will have the seventh and final allotted day. At the end of that day, we will consider the supplementary estimates, as well as interim supply, so that these bills will be able to pass through the other place before the end of our fiscal year.

The government's legislative agenda for the balance of that week will focus on protecting Canadians. Tuesday, March 25 will see us start the second reading debate on Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, a bill that will implement world-class safety standards in the offshore and nuclear sectors. That evening we will finish the debate on the motion to concur in the first report of the foreign affairs committee respecting the situation of Jewish refugees.

On Wednesday, March 26, we will consider Bill C-5, the offshore health and safety act, at report stage and third reading. This bill will complement legislation already passed by the provincial legislatures in Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador, given the shared jurisdiction that exists in the offshore sector.

On Thursday, March 27, we will have the fourth day of second reading debate on Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act. Through this bill, our government is demonstrating its commitment to ensuring that our children are safe from online predators and online exploitation.

Finally, on Friday, March 28, I hope that we will be able to start the second reading debate on Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, also known as Vanessa's law.

Natural Resources

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources in relation to Bill C-5, 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.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[Brenda Baxter]

As with the previous amendment, these consequential amendments to the labour code were put forward in the last session of Parliament. Since then, Bill C-4 has come forward and made some changes to the Canada Labour Code. The amendment we're making here is to include “administrative proceedings”. That is the consequential amendment to the Canada Labour Code that's being made here under Bill C-5. But in addition, because Bill C-4 passed and made some adjustments, this also requires a coordination with the wording under Bill C-4.

[Brenda Baxter]

These are specifically related to the amendments that are proposed under Bill C-5, and specifically those relate to the ability for delegated officials to make representation at certain civil and administrative proceedings. We've changed the word “civil” to include administrative proceedings, which would include things like arbitration hearings. Those are the changes. Specifically the coordination is required around the reference to a delegated official, where previously the code referred to health and safety officer.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

This motion is required to align select subsections of Bill C-5 with the Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, which passed in the last session of Parliament.

In clause 88, the changes are to proposed subsections 216(1), 216(2), and 216(4), pages 243, 244, and 245.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Good morning, everyone.

We are here today for two reasons: one is to deal with clause-by-clause of Bill C-5, and the second is to have a meeting on future business of the committee, which we will do at the completion of Bill C-5.

We have with us today officials from the Department of Natural Resources. We have with us today Jeff Labonté, director general, energy safety and security branch. Welcome. We have Samuel Millar, senior director, frontier lands management division, petroleum resources branch. Welcome. We have Anne-Marie Fortin, senior counsel, legal services. Welcome to you. We have Tyler Cummings, deputy director, frontier lands management division, petroleum resources branch. Welcome to you.

From the Department of Employment and Social Development, we have Brenda Baxter, acting director general, workplace directorate, labour program. Welcome to you.

I think we've had you all at our committee before, if I'm not mistaken. You are welcome back again. We really do appreciate your taking the time to be here today and helping us with this important legislation.

Before we get started, I would just like to ask for the consent of the committee to group, as we go along, the clauses where there have been no amendments brought forth, and to vote on those. Then we'll stop at each clause that is amended and deal with those separately.

Is it agreed by the committee that we proceed in that fashion, group all clauses for voting that have no amendments proposed, and then stop at the first amendment, deal with that, and then go on to the next group and vote on the group together? Is it agreed that we proceed in that fashion?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I just want to address this, please, to Ms. Payne.

We had the benefit of having Justice Wells before the committee recently. He said that twenty-eight and a half out of twenty-nine recommendations that he had made were being implemented, that they were either already implemented or in the course of being implemented and that he wasn't fussed about that last one. He thought the way we were going was getting us to the same end. Overall are you happy with this report? Do you think it has dramatically improved safety in the offshore industry with Bill C-5?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

We know that Bill C-5 mandates the involvement of workers in the safety processes. We heard again last week that workers can benefit from being actively involved in health and safety in those processes, in other words, helping to create the culture of safety that we've spoken about. I believe that goes well beyond reporting dangerous work situations or conditions, or refusing to work if they feel there is a dangerous situation.

I'm wondering if each one of you could speak to this and share how important you think it is that workers are involved in the health and safety processes and moving beyond those two issues that I cited.

[Lana Payne]

The language in Bill C-5 is quite strong, because all you need is to have a reasonable cause that subjects you to danger; whereas what we are seeing now in Bill C-4 places the condition when defining danger as posing an imminent or serious threat. There is a qualifier around that. I think these words almost provide an unending opportunity for debating the quantum risk of the work that is occurring, which will almost supplant the real issue of whether or not the danger exists to the worker.

Bill C-4 also has in place a very long list of almost paper procedures that you have to go through in order to prove that you're in danger, whereas this one, which I hope would reflect more what is in the Newfoundland and Labrador safety code and the Nova Scotia safety code, gives more of a sense of what's reasonable instead of putting qualifiers around it.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today.

As you probably all know, this bill enshrines workers' right to refuse work, or in this case we're talking really about transport, if they have reasonable cause to believe that there is danger involved. The definition of “danger” is not actually in the bill, although power is given in the bill to the Governor in Council to make regulations that would provide the definition.

In your view, how should the term “danger” be defined?

Ms. Payne, you talk about the right to refuse. How is it stronger in Bill C-5, or how is it stronger than it is in Bill C-4, and what are the implications of that?

I will start with you and then I will turn to the other witnesses in the order that we've had them so far.

[Dr. Susan Dodd, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Author, University of King's College, Nova Scotia, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I am actually a professor in the foundation year program at the University of King's College, in Halifax. My field of study is social and political philosophy.

I am the author of a book on the aftermath of the Ocean Ranger disaster. At the moment, I'm collaborating with Dr. Mélanie Frappier, from the history of science and technology program at King's, on a textbook for Oxford University Press. That book is called Engineering in Canada: Results, Risks, and Responsibilities. We're using Canadian case studies to provide engineering students with an introduction to their professional code of ethics.

My work on occupational health and safety developed by accident, quite literally. My oldest brother, Jim, was one of the 84 men who died on the Ocean Ranger. It still gets to me, it's amazing.

Anyway, as you know, in the wake of that disaster, the Government of Canada and the Province of Newfoundland conducted a long inquiry, first, into the causes of the loss, and second, into the appropriate regulatory organization for the Canada-Newfoundland offshore.

In those days, one of the biggest problems was turf wars between Ottawa and St. John's. Chief Justice Hickman's decision to house the permit-granting function with the occupational health and safety regulatory function was deliberate. When I interviewed him for the book on the Ocean Ranger, he was really clear that he thought those groups should be under the same organization in order to prevent what he saw as one of the main political causes of the Ocean Ranger disaster, and that was fragmentation among bureaucracies, among the power holders.

More importantly, and I often need to reiterate this point, the cause of the Ocean Ranger disaster was not the weather. It was a lack of political will to regulate in 1982.

Both Newfoundland and Canada wrongly assumed that the oil companies would self-regulate, that they would comply with the rules that covered them when they operated in American jurisdictions, and those companies did not.

The lesson of the Ocean Ranger disaster is that the kind of regulatory regime in place is less important than the government's expression of political will. If there is no will to enforce regulations, then we risk setting up our people and our environment for deadly exploitation. This is definitely what we learned at Westray, as well, because if the existing legislation had been enforced at Westray, that explosion and those deaths would not have happened.

Within companies, the first priority, the raison d'être of the organization, is to maximize pay for shareholders. This is not hostility or antipathy; it's a matter of priorities. Government's job is to ensure that the collective goods of the electorate are enhanced by, not just protected from, corporate activity. The regulatory needs of the offshore in Canada changed with time, obviously.

In 1982, one of the most pressing problems was a combination of thoughtlessness about occupational health and safety, a combative relationship between federal and provincial authorities, and a deadly naïveté about the professionalism of rig operators.

The New Orleans-based operator of the Ocean Ranger, Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company, was one of the most experienced rig operators in the world in 1982. Even the most cursory glance at Chief Justice Hickman's report will show you that ODECO was negligent by any common-sense use of that term.

ODECO's deadly mismanagement of the Ocean Ranger was possible only because the Province of Newfoundland and the Government of Canada were preoccupied with fighting over anticipated revenues, and they were naively confident that the so-called experts in the industry would perform professionally.

This dynamic will certainly repeat itself if government is once again complacent about its regulatory responsibility. It is worth remembering that although ODECO no longer exists, it and its fleet were purchased by Diamond Offshore Drilling, which still uses the name “Ocean” in the names of their vessels.

The well owner was Mobil Oil, so I'm glad to see how clearly Bill C-5 points to the responsibility of the owners to ensure that the rig operator behaves professionally in relation to safety.

Today, one of the central problems that this bill seems to address is clarity around functions and the need to keep regulations up to date in the changing industry.

I have given a lot of thought to what I could add to your discussion that...[Technical difficulty—Editor]

First, the regulatory structure will be exactly as effective as the political will that supports it. Where there is no political will, that is, where it is assumed that corporations are best left to their own expert judgment, there can be no effective regulation. That is where disaster begins.

The fact that this bill does not implement recommendation 29 from the Wells commission seems to me to be potentially a red herring. If the political will to regulate is communicated, safety will be respected. A stand-alone safety division would be effective only if it had resources and a commitment from government to prosecute when appropriate. Simply creating the office will not do the trick. It would require an investment.

Second, failure to regulate leads not only to loss of life and destruction of the environment, but also to the public's losing confidence in the legitimacy of government. This happened to an extent after the Ocean Ranger loss, certainly after the Westray disaster, in the States after the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the oil spill, and we're seeing the same kind of dynamic after the Lac-Mégantic disaster. These events are also political disasters.

Third, I would like to see a fines system that earmarks revenues for research and development. When I interviewed John Crosbie for the book, he said, “We still don't know how to get those men off those rigs.” That was a sort of typically gendered statement, but anyway....

Industry does not have an internal motivation to study evacuation systems. Government needs to take that on, and in this case I would say in partnership with Memorial and Dalhousie engineering schools. We can't leave research and development simply to industry. They have different priorities than the good of the public. We need independent researchers working on evacuation and rescue technologies.

Fourth, the advisory council might, in cooperation with governments, business, and universities, convene a conference on regulation every three years. Having a regularized conference would help Canada keep up with changing industry and international standards. We could invite regulation experts from Europe as well as from the U.S.A. We might use Hickman's conference that he conducted after the Ocean Ranger as a model for that.

I would love to see governments consider local, by which I mean provincial, hiring and training requirements. The training would have to go with it, right? Otherwise things like the Ocean Ranger disaster happen.

My sixth and final point is a question. It goes back, I think, to the spirit of the recommendation on the Wells commission around the independence of safety regulators. The question is this: Does Bill C-5's clarification of the roles of the various officers entail an increase in the number of government officers responsible for regulating work on the rigs? It seems to me that investment in regulatory personnel would be a real expression of political will to regulate safety in the offshore.

Thank you.

[Barbara Pike, Chief Executive Officer, The Maritimes Energy Association]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. It is a pleasure and an honour to be presenting to your committee today on this important piece of legislation.

The Maritimes Energy Association is an independent not-for-profit industry organization. We represent businesses that provide goods and services to the energy sector onshore and offshore, renewable and non-renewable, in eastern Canada, and predominantly in the three maritime provinces.

While operators and producers are members of the association, our core membership is the hundreds of local companies that employ thousands of people and inject hundreds and millions of dollars into our local economies. We appreciate the opportunity to provide on their behalf the association's perspective on Bill C-5, which has become known as the offshore health and safety act.

Maritimes Energy supports the offshore oil and gas industry and encourages its continued development under a robust regulatory regime. We applaud the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board for the work both do and the strict standards to which the boards hold the offshore industry.

It should be noted that safety does come first for the oil and gas industry. This is not about having a safety plan ready or collecting dust on a shelf in your office. It is about a culture of safety. It is a mantra in the industry. Every meeting starts with a safety moment. Every incident is reported. Every trend is tracked. It's not lip service; it is a mantra: safety does come first.

The Maritimes Energy Association supports Bill C-5. It formalizes offshore occupational health and safety legislation, providing clarity around what government agencies are responsible for what.

The legislation establishes a hierarchy of responsibility that makes operators ultimately responsible for all activities related to their operations with regard to occupational health and safety. It requires that operators share this OSH information with their contractors, who are our members. It grants the CNSOPB and the C-NLOPB the authority to disclose to the public information related to occupational health and safety. This adds to the principles of openness, transparency, and accountability for our offshore regulatory regime.

The bill formalizes the right of a worker to refuse work they believe constitutes a danger to themselves or others, and protects them from retaliation. As well, it covers the requirement for occupational health and safety committees.

These amendments clarify jurisdictional uncertainties. The boards will have clear authority under the accord acts to enforce all occupational health and safety requirements.

Maritimes Energy is also supportive of the formation of the advisory council, which will include representatives from industry, government, and employees to provide advice on matters related to occupational health and safety for our members.

These amendments are long overdue, but let me be clear: over the years that these amendments were being negotiated, the safety of offshore workers remained the top priority of both offshore boards. The safety of offshore workers is and always will be a top priority.

Safe operations for workers and for the environment outweigh all other considerations. Both boards have done that, even with legislation that dates back to the 1980s, legislation that obviously does not reflect today's reality. Through guidelines, through conditions on authorizations, and through sheer will, the boards have regulated Canada's east coast offshore industry. Ours is a regulatory regime that does reflect best practices, latest technologies, and most important, lessons learned.

That has not always been easy with the existing accord acts, which require that any amendments be approved by provincial and federal governments. These amendments are such an example.

While we celebrate their introduction and support their passage, we also note that they've been 13 years in the making. It has not been an easy process with the two boards and so many provincial and government departments at the table. It was a lengthy process.

Through those years, the two boards stayed focused. Through such techniques as conditions on authorizations, staff ensured that the latest advances in occupational health and safety were applied. Passage of the bill will strengthen the way the two boards already administer and enforce offshore safety activities for our members.

In closing, I want to reiterate the Maritimes Energy Association's support for Bill C-5. The amendments provide greater clarity for who is responsible for regulating offshore occupational health and safety. It strengthens our regulatory regime.

Safety is the priority of the oil and gas industry. That industry includes the operators, the supply chain, and the regulators. The responsibility for safety rests with those in the workplace: the operator, the contractor, the supervisor, and the worker, everyone in the workplace.

The regulator's responsibility is to see that those who have that responsibility are exercising that responsibility. It is not the job of the regulator to take on the job and guarantee safety.

Like the onshore, Bill C-5 provides clarity for our members working in the offshore. It enforces the requirement that the information needed by our members to exercise their responsibility is provided.

It gives to the boards the regulatory responsibility to ensure that we all—workers, contractors, and operators—make offshore occupational health and safety the top priority.

Thank you for your time, and for your invitation to present to you today.

[Lana Payne, Atlantic Director, Unifor]

Thanks, everybody, for having us here. We really appreciate the opportunity to present on Bill C-5.

I would like to give apologies, because our presentation is only now at our translation department. We will send it electronically so that folks can have it, although I did bring the English version for your translation department.

Today, as already mentioned, I am here representing Unifor, Canada's largest energy union. My remarks, I would add, are supported by both the Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia federations of labour, which were both active in their provinces with respect to consultations over the last decade dealing with an offshore oil and gas safety regime.

Over 20,000 of Unifor's more than 300,000 members work in the energy sector across Canada, including over 700 workers in Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore oil industry on both the Hibernia and Terra Nova platforms.

It is an industry, as you in this room will know, that has known its share of tragedy over the years: the sinking of the Ocean Ranger drill rig in February 1982, and the perishing of 84 workers; and in March 2009, the crash of Cougar flight 491, with the loss of 17 workers.

The joint federal-provincial commission of inquiry report into the Ocean Ranger disaster noted that “the shock wave created by the loss was felt particularly throughout” our province. It also noted, “In that tightly-knit maritime community there were few who did not discover a link, direct or indirect, to one of those lost in the tragedy.”

Similar words and sentiments were repeated following the crash of flight 491. Perhaps this is why workplace safety in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore is such a matter of public concern as well as worker concern.

Unifor is very pleased that we finally have, with the federal enactment of this bill, real safety laws for our offshore that can be enforced rather than the guidelines that were in place for the last two decades. A safety regime tailored to the unique challenges posed by working in the offshore is a positive step, but there is still substantial room, in our opinion, for improvement with respect to building a responsive, proactive, and preventative occupational health and safety culture in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore oil industry.

First and foremost, it's quite unfortunate that the legislation does not address what we believe is still critically needed in our offshore, an independent, powerful, stand-alone authority in charge of safety and the environment, as was recommended by Commissioner Robert Wells, who I believe you may have heard from last week as a witness.

In this regard, Canada is still far behind industrialized oil economies such as Norway, the U.K., and Australia. Even the United States has made a move to separate safety and environmental enforcement from the management of the offshore oil and gas industry with the creation of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

The U.K. moved in this direction after the Piper Alpha disaster and subsequent public inquiry by Judge Cullen. An explosion and fire on the U.K. platform in 1988 killed 167 men. It is still considered the world's worst offshore oil disaster. It raised the issue of competing or conflicting regulatory mandates and what we today call regulatory capture.

The inquiry recommended that the responsibility for enforcing safety should be removed from the department of energy and placed with the health and safety executive, because having both production and safety overseen by the same agency was viewed as a conflict of interest. This has now become the standard in most oil-producing countries or industrialized ones.

In 2005, Australia, also heeding the advice of Justice Cullen, created the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority, an independent offshore safety agency. In 2012 they added environment to its responsibilities.

In June of this year, the head of the Australian safety and environmental agency, Jane Cutler, noted that the Piper Alpha disaster and inquiry and recommendations by Lord Cullen have had a huge impact on safety regulation and enforcement in her country.

She noted, “An entrenched industry and regulatory culture is very difficult to change even when faced by clear evidence of the need to improve the human and organizational aspects of their safety programs. There is resistance to change even when there is a clear opportunity to refocus regulatory programs to emphasize the role of human, organizational and management influences on offshore safety.”

She said that as we move forward we must ensure that “safety and environmental management are treated with the same degree of seriousness as profit and loss”.

Norway is perhaps the world leader with respect to offshore safety and the environment and in its involvement of all stakeholders in developing and implementing a world-class safety culture for the offshore oil industry. In 2004 it created the Petroleum Safety Authority. In both phase one and phase two of his inquiry report, Commissioner Wells was very clear about the need for such an independent safety authority. He said, “Vigorous oversight and prompt action can avert accidents and prevent injury and loss of life.”

Commissioner Wells was also very clear about the importance of communications and engagement with workers and the public with respect to safety in the offshore oil industry. It's been three years since the release of his report and still the full spirit and intent of his recommendations have not been implemented.

I can share some examples with you about this, but I don't think my seven minutes are going to allow for time, so if someone wants to use their question in that regard, I can certainly fill in.

There are two examples I would raise with respect to that point.

First is the July 2011 near crash, the severity of which was not reported to workers or to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador by the regulator or the operators. At that time the helicopter carrying crew offshore came within 38 feet of crashing in the ocean. It had dropped 152 metres in 32 seconds. Workers and the public only found out about the severity of this incident just this fall, two years after it occurred, and only because of the investigation by the Transportation Safety Board. It is also thought that this incident may have had a different result had the near crash occurred at night. You're probably aware that we still do not have night flying in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. This is also an issue that I could speak to in any questions you might have.

Recommendation 12 of the Wells inquiry dealt with the issue of night flying, something that has been banned since February 2012 in the offshore of Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada. He did not recommend a return to night flights, but rather recommended that criteria be worked out for cases when night flying might be imperative or during an emergency. This was not exactly the direction that was given to the offshore helicopter implementation committee at the time when Commissioner Wells filed his report. Instead, quite a large caveat was allowed around recommendation 12.

Unifor believes that an independent safety and environmental authority would respond to such cases in a different and more proactive role and fashion. In our opinion, an independent, proactive, and vigilant safety and environmental authority would begin to restore the faith of workers in the role of a regulator in protecting and acting to improve safety in the offshore oil industry. It would avoid the very real danger of regulatory capture.

There are two other points I would like to raise.

The first deals with the issue of right to refuse, which is in proposed section 205.05 in clause 45 of Bill C-5. The language in Bill C-5 is very important and quite strong. We advocated improving this given the dangers in the offshore, but we do raise a matter of concern. That is, in Bill C-4, which I know your committee does not deal with, there have been changes made to the federal labour code with respect to the right to refuse. We are quite concerned that this could impact on this legislation. We would encourage you to keep the language that is currently in this bill, because it is a lot stronger than what we've seen in Bill C-4. Hopefully, you will not make amendments to that part of the bill.

My final point deals with proposed section 205.118, which is the establishment of an advisory council for the offshore oil and gas industry. It refers to a stakeholder advisory council.

We would strongly urge that both the federal and provincial governments ensure that the union representing workers offshore be invited to recommend their own representatives to this committee. This will ensure accountability.

We would also suggest that these worker representatives report back to the workplace safety committees on the council's initiatives and activities. These and other matters do not necessarily require a legislative amendment, but could be achieved in the mandate of the advisory council.

It has been our experience that such a body could provide a proactive approach to safety oversight in the offshore, similar to the tripartite structures in other oil jurisdictions, such as Norway. The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority notes that collaboration between employers, unions, governments, and workers are important cornerstones in efforts to establish and develop health and safety in their industry: “From an ethical perspective, it is crucial that people exposed to risk participate in decision-making processes which affect such exposure.”

How workers are currently engaged in the offshore needs to change. While we have seen some small steps in this regard, with the new management at our regulator, it is essential that structures with clearly defined roles and responsibilities be put in place to ensure an ongoing, proactive safety dialogue.

In conclusion, 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.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Good afternoon, everyone. We're here to continue our study on Bill C-5, 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.

We have witnesses with us today, but just before we get to them, there are a couple of things I want to mention. One is that we will put aside 15 or 20 minutes at the end of today's meeting to deal with future business. The other thing is quite disturbing, and it's starting to happen all too often.

I got a call, as did some of my colleagues, from a person in the media, someone from Canadian Press, who talked about information from an in camera meeting. The person had specifics on that information and said only that it came from an opposition member. I have no way of knowing whether that's true or not, but I just want to remind all members of the committee that when things are dealt with in camera, they have to stay in camera. It's really important that we can trust that what is said in camera and what is dealt with in camera stays in camera.

It is extremely disappointing to me that this has happened. It has happened at other committees too. It has to stop. It is a breach of members' privilege. I trust that it will stop. If somebody has unintentionally disclosed something that they hadn't intended to—and I know that can happen if you get into an interview and you kind of forget what you should and shouldn't be talking about—certainly I'd be interested in hearing from whoever has done that. We can have a bit of a chat about it. I just have to believe that this isn't going to happen in the future and that what is discussed in camera will stay in camera.

Mr. Julian, go ahead.

[Bernard Valcourt, Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

When things are going well, I'm the reason, and when things are going badly, they are to blame, of course.

Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to discuss Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act. I appreciate the invitation to appear on the proposed legislation, which I had the pleasure of introducing in the House and speaking to at second reading earlier this week.

Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act is the final step for the federal government in devolving powers to the Northwest Territories. This legislation would bring into effect the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement, which would provide the people of the Northwest Territories with the ability to make their own decisions about lands and resources in their own backyard.

I had the privilege of signing the final Devolution Agreement on behalf of the Government of Canada in Inuvik this past June, along with the Premier of the Government of the Northwest Territories, as well as five of our aboriginal partners in the Northwest Territories—Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated, Gwich'in Tribal Council and Tlicho Government.

As you know, we continue to work toward a target effective date of April 1, 2014, as requested by the Premier of the Government of the Northwest Territories and agreed to by the Prime Minister and all parties to the Devolution Agreement.

Bill C-15 would also modernize and improve the regulatory regime in the Northwest Territories by amending the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act and the Territorial Lands Act.

As I just said, Bill C-15 would also modernize and improve the regulatory regime in the Northwest Territories by amending three specific acts: the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act, and the Territorial Lands Act.

I wish to assure the members of this committee that we are confident this bill, as a whole, would ensure that a modern, efficient, and effective land and water regulatory system is in place when the Government of the Northwest Territories assumes increased responsibilities in respect of lands, waters, and resources by the target devolution date, effective April 1, 2014.

Our government and the Government of the Northwest Territories agree that changes brought about by Bill C-15 would ensure that northerners benefit fully from the transfer of management over lands and resources post-April 2014.

Members of this committee are already well versed, I believe, in the benefits of regulatory improvements such as the ones proposed in Bill C-15. I say this because not long ago we reviewed together—and you reviewed in detail—Bill C-47, the Northern Jobs and Growth Act, which implemented reforms to Nunavut's regulatory regime, among other pieces of legislation.

It is vitally important, we submit, that the Northwest Territories not fall behind the other two territories, or the rest of the country for that matter, in its regulatory system. The need for regulatory reform becomes even more apparent as territories acquire increased authorities and responsibilities. An effective, responsive, and modern regulatory regime ensures that the territories—specifically, in the case of Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories—will be poised to benefit fully from increased resource development and local management of lands and resources resulting from devolution.

The introduction of a modern regime in the Northwest Territories will also meet the needs of investors, developers, and employers who must rely on a clear and predictable review and assessment process to remain competitive in a global marketplace given the high cost of business in the north.

Just last week the Government of the Northwest Territories released their first ever mineral development strategy, which I recommend all members to read and look at. It speaks to the tremendous potential of the Northwest Territories to become an economic powerhouse and to the wealth of mineral resources in the territory.

The Government of the Northwest Territories, Mr. Chairman, further states that in order to address investment challenges and unlock the potential, they need a solid regulatory framework in place. If I may, I'd like to quote Minister Ramsay from the Government of the Northwest Territories, who said “Restoring a positive investment climate in the NWT is critical if we are to discover new deposits and establish new mines...”.

The legislative amendments proposed in the Northwest Territories Devolution Act respond to these criticisms that have been raised for many years now, and will position the Northwest Territories to take advantage of the many economic opportunities in the region in a sustainable and responsible manner.

As many of you know, five years ago our government appointed Mr. Neil McCrank to look into these very issues and identify potential reforms for northern regulatory regimes. Based on his recommendations, our government announced the action plan to improve northern regulatory regimes.

The action plan was launched to make improvements to the existing regulatory regimes across the north to ensure that they are strong, effective, efficient, and predictable by making reviews of projects more predictable and timely; reducing duplication for project reviews; strengthening environmental protection; and finally, respecting consultation obligations with aboriginal groups.

Consultations on the action plan to improve northern regulatory regimes, including legislative amendments to the regulatory regime in the territories, have been ongoing since 2010.

In addition, our government appointed John Pollard to consult with aboriginal organizations on the possibility of restructuring the land and water boards in the Mackenzie Valley. Since that time, Mr. Pollard has held over 50 consultation meetings with aboriginal groups and organizations, co-management boards, and industry.

As you can see, we didn't arrive at the bill before you overnight. Rather, the bill you see before you today is the product of extensive consultations. These consultations involved all of the boards affected by the proposed amendments, because as you all know, some boards are indeed affected. The consultations involved industry stakeholders and representatives of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Aboriginal organizations with and without settled land claims in the territory, as well as those with relevant trans-boundary claims in the territory also participated. In all, 24 aboriginal organizations were invited to participate in the technical consultation sessions and funds were made available to assist them in doing so.

As the consultation progressed, additional policy issues and other pieces of legislation were also considered. Eventually, final legislative proposals took shape and these became the focus of technical consultation sessions ending in October of this year. Bill C-15, Northwest Territories Devolution Act, is the result of this process.

At these sessions, some participants expressed specific concerns about the proposed amendments, and the Government of Canada carefully considered these comments in the bill before you and incorporated a number of these recommended measures as a direct result of those technical sessions. For example, Bill C-15 requires that the chair of the restructured Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board consider including at least one regional nominee on smaller committees when reviewing development wholly within those regions. This amendment, first proposed by one of the aboriginal organizations that participated in the consultations, is an example of the collaboration, feedback, and accommodation that produced Bill C-15.

Another recommendation led to the redrafting of development certificate provisions to further align the proposal with similar provisions in the Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act, NPPAA. I think it will be evident to the committee that adoption of the Northwest Territories Devolution Act is imperative to empower the people of the Northwest Territories to shape their own future, and will ensure the long-term economic prosperity of the territory and indeed of all of Canada.

Mr. Chair, I want to thank you, and I will do my best to answer members' questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Crockatt, very much.

Thank you to both you gentlemen. I think you've provided us with some extremely helpful information. You come from incredible backgrounds, and the committee thanks you for being here today and for helping us with our study of Bill C-5.

I will suspend for just a couple of minutes.

Point of order, Mr. Gravelle.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Barnes, I should have said at the outset that I'm from Calgary, the home of CAPP, so I'm glad to see you here answering questions. I thought I'd ask you a little bit about how this is going to translate on the ground. No one, of course, wants to see an accident—not the government, not industry, not the people who are working there.

Can you tell me, in your estimation, how Bill C-5 will translate on the ground for people who are actually working in the industry?

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Peter. I have just one quick question.

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board are both responsible for safety. They are responsible for the environmental impact and industry regulation. Now, some people, critics—and I know you've addressed this in your report as well—say that creates a potential or perceived conflict. My question is this. Wouldn't an independent safety regulator address that conflict where Bill C-5, this Offshore Health and Safety Act, would not?

[Paul Barnes]

As I mentioned, as we were reading Bill C-5, there were a number of questions we had around certain definitions. There are a number of definitions used regarding such terms as “danger”, for example, and what's meant by danger or how right to refusal can actually be used in practice. Some of the language was confusing to us, but we did actually, as I mentioned in my testimony, have some meetings with representatives from the federal government, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Province of Nova Scotia to seek some further information as to the intent of some of the definitions and language in the act.

We took comfort in what we heard from those discussions and are taking additional comfort that regulations will be developed from this act. I think there's a provision in the act that indicated that the regulations have to be developed within the next five years. We feel that some of the concerns we had around definitions or some of the activities and practices will be further elaborated in those regulations. We take comfort in that as well.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I'll ask Mr. Barnes.

You said that clarity would help in relation to some things in Bill C-5. I don't know if you'll have time in your answer to list much of what you're talking about in terms of the areas where you think clarity would help. Perhaps you could start, and maybe provide us with a list if others don't give you the opportunity to continue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We have arranged the meeting for Monday, and I don't remember who is actually going to be here, but we'll have at least a full slate.

One other thing just quickly is whether we could approve the budget for the study of Bill C-5. That's been passed around.

Let's get on with the business of the meeting. We'll start with Ms. Crockatt for the seven-minute round, followed by Mr. Harris and then Mr. Regan.

Go ahead, please, Ms. Crockatt.

[Robert Wells, Former Inquiry Commissioner, Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members, for inviting me to be here in front of the committee to talk about offshore matters generally.

I've had an opportunity in the last three or four days to examine the bill. The bill is a complex piece of legislation. Somebody has worked hard—more than one person, I suspect—on this bill. I know that it's been under consideration for a number of years. Quite honestly, I think it's a good job and I think it will help to formalize some of the concepts that people knowledgeable about the industry and the regulatory people have thought about for some time. To see it enshrined—I hope to see it enshrined—in legislation is a good thing.

A couple of things impressed me most. One is that the bill talks about and mandates the involvement of workers in the processes of safety. That was something that was important to me during the two years and three or four months that I was the inquiry commissioner. In my report, the theme that workers must be involved emerges constantly. Now, I was concerned with helicopters, not safety on the offshore installations, but in both cases workers must be involved, and the fact that there's legislation going to involve them formally, I think, is a very, very good thing.

Another thing impressed me. I have great confidence in the wisdom of non-experts. We need experts in this complex age very much, but experts should be advisers. There's no better illustration probably than Parliament itself, which has expert advice on many things, but in the end decisions are made by governments and parliaments that are not necessarily expert in particular fields.

The idea of advisory committees, to me, is a very welcome thing to see in this. My own report recommends that advisory committees be established to have expert advice but nonetheless to guide the experts, if you like, or guide the decision makers, more importantly, in the important decisions that they have to take. Maybe I get this from years of dealing with juries as a counsel and as a judge, but I have the greatest respect for the wisdom that ordinary men and women have that comes forth when they're asked to consider things. These two things I mention.

Of course, the other thing this act does is to bring the offshore into the fold of occupational health and safety generally, because the offshore has been off on its own in the past. This brings them into the broader context of occupational health and safety. That's important in another way also, in that it helps in the development of a safety culture or safety cultures. Safety cultures are one of the most important things. They're hard to define. Some of the writers on safety have described them simply as the way we do things around here—but that's an extremely important component of safety. I think the offshore involvement with other safety cultures will both strengthen other safety cultures and allow them in the offshore to be strengthened by that involvement. That's extremely important, I think, in the safety field.

I won't say more about this in the short time in which I'm making general remarks, but I want to pay tribute to the people in the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board for the progress that has been made in the last four and a half years since the tragic accident in March 2009.

Perhaps the most important in my mind has been the raising of the search and rescue capability provided by the operators to the world-class standard, because at the time of the accident it wasn't at the world-class standard. There was no dedicated helicopter. The regular transport helicopter had to be refitted, seats taken out, and hoists put in to become a search and rescue helicopter. On the day of the accident, that took about 50 minutes, so the search and rescue helicopter didn't get in the air for about 50 to 55 minutes. That's a long time in search and rescue when people are in the North Atlantic, either as a result of a crash or a ditching.

At any rate, that was so important to me as I began to learn in the inquiry process that, as you probably know, I made an interim recommendation that a start on that process should be made immediately. The C-NLOPB responded and the oil operators responded and last spring.... It took a lot longer than I thought, taking about a year. You can't buy one of these helicopters as you can buy a car, for example. Then you need other things. You need an important hangar with all the facilities. You need facilities from bedrooms to cooking facilities to whatever in the hangar because you're going to have people there 24/7 when they're on duty. Then one needs permission to build a new hangar.

All this was expensive, but the oil operators came through and last spring was a very significant day, and for me personally, too, when I went to the opening of that facility, because that marked a transition. It brought the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board to a world-class standard with a 20-minute response time. I think that was a marvellous thing and I congratulate C-NLOPB, the oil operators, and the industry generally for making that happen.

Other things have also happened in the last three or four years. There has been greater worker involvement in committees, particularly in safety forums, which are ongoing. I've been to two of them. I went to one two or three weeks ago. I was invited to go and the discussion was very fruitful and important and worker involvement was there. I'm glad to see in Bill C-5 that workers and their unions and representatives of safety committees are involved. These are good things.

Survival suits, as Mr. Barnes has said, have been improved substantially, and that is a good thing. The other important thing that has been done is that the C-NLOPB has now got top-notch aviation expertise in-house, and also outside the house that it can call on. That is of fundamental importance because up to then, the C-NLOPB had no expertise in aviation. It relied on the operators. It relied on Transport Canada, and that's fine as far as it goes, but in a dangerous offshore environment, which we have in the North Atlantic, you need expert advice and knowledge right at the scene of aviation of what's possible and what should be and on what C-NLOPB, as an institution, has to watch for and be on top of.

These are good things that have happened. There are many more just in the training.

When I took the training it was in a pool with a temperature of probably 20 degrees or something like that, and it was calm. That didn't make it much easier to go into the dunker, which is an experience for anyone. But now, after ExxonMobil—if I'm correct—provided $3.8 million to bring the training facility up, I visited it after the work was done and it was quite something, with simulated thunder and lightning, waves, storms of rain and wind. It was as realistic as anything could be. If I had been invited on that day to take the training, I might not have done it.

We have made a lot of progress, and this is probably the first time in a formal setting such as this that I, as the former commissioner, have been able to pay tribute to what has been done.

Now, I doubt if you will be asking me all that many questions on the bill itself. If you do, I'll do my best to answer them, if you give me the reference and what to look at, but something that took 10 years to prepare can hardly be digested in three, four, or five days. Anyway, that's that.

I suspect you have other questions for me in other areas, which I'll do my best to address. But thank you very much for this opportunity to make an opening statement.

[Paul Barnes, Manager, Atlantic Canada, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.

As you know, my name is Paul Barnes. I am the Atlantic Canada manager for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, or as it's commonly referred to, CAPP. CAPP's head office is located in Calgary, Alberta, but they also have a regional office for Atlantic Canada located in St. John's, Newfoundland, which is where I am based—and I should mention that's where I'm from as well. Given that we have two MPs from St. John's in the room, I figured I'd do a shout out to them.

CAPP represents Canada's upstream oil and gas sector—those companies that are involved in exploration, development, and production of oil and gas. Our members find and develop over 90% of Canada's petroleum resources all across the country. Together they invest over $50 billion annually, and they employ more than 500,000 Canadians. In Atlantic Canada alone, our industry directly employs over 5,600 people and supports over 800 local supply and service companies. Cumulative investment in the region has been totalling close to $40 billion since 1996.

The oil and gas industry also accounts for 30% of Newfoundland and Labrador's gross domestic product, GDP, and there remains significant growth potential in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, both onshore and offshore.

We appreciate the opportunity to offer CAPP's perspectives today regarding Bill C-5, Offshore Health and Safety Act, as it's commonly referred to.

While we believe there are areas where greater clarity in the legislation's wording would be beneficial, we are supportive of the intent and spirit of the legislation. We believe it is another positive step in bringing clarity and efficiency to the regulatory regime that governs the offshore petroleum industry in Atlantic Canada. We have met with provincial and federal government representatives since the bill was introduced and have received additional clarity on some of the legislative language. We expect that more clarity will be provided once regulations associated with this act are drafted. Today I will outline CAPP's views on Bill C-5, and to provide some important context to this discussion, I'll also touch on the overall subject of offshore safety.

With respect to CAPP's views on Bill C-5, over the past several years, CAPP and our members who are active in Atlantic Canada offshore participated in the government's consultation process related to amendments to the accord acts to address occupational health and safety. We appreciate the role the offshore petroleum boards also played in this process, for even though their mandate is not to develop legislation, they did provide considerable expertise and advice on the subject to the legislative writers, which has resulted in what we believe is a comprehensive legal framework that achieves the same protection for offshore workers that onshore workers currently enjoy.

We support government's desires to formalize offshore occupational health and safety legislation as described in Bill C-5. It provides industry with clarity on what government agencies are responsible for regulating occupational health and safety. Joint jurisdiction of the federal and provincial governments of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador is now recognized. In this process, consideration has been given to an effective and efficient use of regulatory resources, avoiding duplication and overlap between different governments and different government agencies.

This bill also reflects a hierarchy of responsibility in clarifying the role of governments, the role of regulators, the role of employers, and the role of employees. It recognizes that the oil and gas operator is ultimately responsible for ensuring worker safety in the offshore environment.

CAPP also welcomes the establishment of an advisory council that will include representatives from industry, government, and employees to provide advice on matters related to occupational health and safety. We look forward to providing industry representatives with seats on such a committee. We also understand that governments will be consulting industry as they continue to process the drafting of regulations related to these amendments, and CAPP and our members look forward to being consulted as part of that process.

I now wish to provide some context for what is meant by safety in the offshore oil and gas industry.

Safety comes to mind first in the oil and gas industry. In the offshore, where factors like harsh weather, icebergs, and remoteness of work locations provide added challenges, our members are diligent in equipping workers with the skills and tools needed to keep themselves and their co-workers safe. All of our offshore operations are guided by comprehensive health and safety plans that must be developed before any offshore activity is approved.

The Canada-Nova Scotia and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore petroleum boards audit these company health and safety plans, and frequently inspect offshore work locations. The boards have the power to shut down operations that are unsafe.

Our industry is committed to continuous improvement. We support research to test and advance new safety equipment and regularly assess the safety equipment and training provided to offshore workers as new research and technology becomes available.

We work to eliminate or control potential hazards and to keep our workplaces and employees safe. We must also ensure that our employees are ready to respond effectively in an emergency situation. Offshore workers receive comprehensive safety training focusing on emergency response and survival, which must be repeated at regular intervals to ensure that they have the skills required to effectively handle an emergency situation.

The industry views training as a critical component of emergency preparedness and response. Working with regulators, drilling companies, offshore worker representatives, and training institutions through the Atlantic Canada training and qualifications committee, our industry regularly assesses our training standards and ensures that processes are in place to ensure that the training available in Atlantic Canada meets the intent of the standard and is of good quality.

We also work to ensure that the safety equipment designed for and provided to offshore workers in Atlantic Canada is the best available for the offshore environment they are working in.

One example is the introduction of the helicopter underwater emergency breathing apparatus, also known as the HUEBA. In 2009 the offshore petroleum industry in Atlantic Canada implemented this device, which is mandatory for travel by helicopter offshore. The HUEBA gives the user an additional capacity of breathable air so that he or she has more time to escape from a partially or totally submerged helicopter in an emergency situation. The HUEBA is basically a compressed air device, like the small scuba tank used in diving. This is just one example of a tool that has been implemented by the offshore industry to enhance safety.

A more recent example, in fact one that is ongoing right now, relates to the helicopter passenger transportation suits that are worn by offshore workers when travelling by helicopters offshore. In 2012 the Canadian General Standards Board published a revised standard for helicopter passenger transportation suits.

CAPP and our members participated fully in the CGSB review of this standard, which resulted in an improved published standard for future suits, as it requires suits to be tested in more realistic conditions such as colder water, amongst other things. Oil and gas operators in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are at the end of a process now to select a contractor who will develop these helicopter passenger transportation suits for Atlantic Canada offshore, built to this new standard.

CAPP and our members engage the offshore workforce through joint occupational health and safety committees on every offshore installation to ensure that worker feedback is part of the process of revising safety and training standards and introducing new equipment. This process has proven to be an important aspect of how CAPP advances important safety files and ensures that workforce feedback is part of the process.

As an industry, we will continue to advance research and will continue to challenge ourselves to continually improve performance.

To conclude, I want to reiterate CAPP's support for Bill C-5. From industry's perspective, the amendments provide greater clarity related to who's responsible for regulating offshore occupational health and safety. This has now been formalized into legislation.

The proposed legislative amendments will also further strengthen Canada's leadership in offshore safety.

As an industry, we will continue to work to ensure that our workplaces are as safe as possible; will continue to focus on training as an essential component of our safety plans and programs; and will continue to assess the safety equipment and tools we provide to our workforce in order to reduce or eliminate hazards and to ensure they are fully prepared to respond in the event of an emergency.

I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. I look forward to any questions you may have afterwards.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Good afternoon everyone.

We're here today, after votes, to continue our study of Bill C-5, 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.

We have two witnesses here today. The first, from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, is Mr. Paul Barnes, manager for Atlantic Canada. Welcome, Mr. Barnes.

We have, as an individual, the Honourable Robert Wells, former inquiry commissioner of the Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry. Welcome to you, Mr. Wells.

We'll go ahead as usual. We'll start with a presentation from each of the witnesses, and then we'll start our questions and comments from members.

We'll go with the order on the agenda, starting with Mr. Barnes, manager for Atlantic Canada for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Go ahead, please, sir.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Tessier, in relation to the provisions of Bill C-5 applying to the potential drilling in the St. Lawrence basin, which wasn't under your jurisdiction, it would seem to me there might be concerns raised, for instance, by other provinces—Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick—and of course there's no agreement at the moment that's been adopted between the federal government and these provinces in relation to this activity.

Do you see any problems with implementing this bill in the gulf in view of this?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

In relation to the fact that both Bill C-4 and Bill C-5 propose to amend section 144 of the Canada Labour Code, but they do so in different ways and for different reasons, if Bill C-4 is enacted before Bill C-5, then section 144 of the Canada Labour Code will be inconsistent with other provisions of that act.

I wonder why there is no provision that would coordinate the competing amendments to the Canada Labour Code. Do you have any information on what's happening there in terms of coordinating the two?

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, folks, for being here. I appreciate your insight and input into this bill.

One of the comments you both made was with respect to transparency. Mr. Pinks, one of the comments you made was that as a regulator of a high-profile industry, you are frequently challenged with releasing information. It was the same thing with Newfoundland. You said these new amendments would provide a comprehensive legal framework to achieve the same protections.

Can you comment about that release of information and transparency? What are the benefits of Bill C-5 that you didn't have before?

[Stuart Pinks, Chief Executive Officer, Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board]

Okay.

Mr. Chair, and members, thank you for the invitation for the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, what we call the C-NSOPB, to appear before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources regarding Bill C-5, the offshore health and safety act.

My name is Stuart Pinks and I am the board’s chief executive officer.

The C-NSOPB is the independent joint agency of the governments of Canada and Nova Scotia responsible for the regulation of petroleum activities in the Nova Scotia offshore area. In carrying out its legislative mandate, the health and safety of offshore workers is paramount, and it is with this in mind that the board is pleased to be able to communicate to this committee the board’s support for Bill C-5.

While both the federal and provincial governments acknowledged the need for legislative change, the board took interim steps a number of years ago and developed its own set of occupational health and safety requirements based on a hybrid of best practices from existing provincial and federal legislation and regulations. At the heart of these requirements is an internal responsibility system which, among other aspects, promotes a positive safety culture, the use of best practices, and holds both employers and employees accountable for safety.

Our current health and safety structure ensures that petroleum activities are conducted in a manner in which hazards are properly identified, and the associated risks assessed and then appropriately mitigated and managed. The board’s health and safety team is led by our chief safety officer, Mr. Keith Landra, who alongside me is appointed by and reports directly to the board. Reporting to Mr. Landra are several health, safety, and environment advisers, some of whom are also designated as safety officers under the current legislation. One of these safety officers has been designated as a backup to Mr. Landra in his capacity as chief safety officer, should he be unable to fulfill his role at any given time.

As a former chief safety officer at the board myself, I know first-hand the importance of having in place the appropriate organizational structure to assure that our decision-making process recognizes safety as paramount and environmental protection as a close second. I am pleased to say that our board has in place a governance structure to assure that this is indeed the case, and that to this end they have created a separate board committee responsible for oversight of our health, safety, and environmental, HSE, protection mandate.

This committee consists of board members with extensive offshore oil and gas experience and expertise. It meets regularly with our chief safety officer ahead of all board meetings and also on an as-needed basis. These meetings are designed to give the chief safety officer regular and direct access to the board members in support of his very important role, separate from consideration of other aspects of the board’s mandate.

The HSE committee has a number of functions, which include reviewing decisions taken to assure that decision-making recognizes the paramountcy of health and safety. The committee also supports the chief safety officer in his role and provides advice as and when necessary. Another key benefit of the committee is that it acts as a system of checks and balances to ensure that all the appropriate policies, systems, guidelines, and memoranda of understanding are in place for ensuring regulatory due diligence, and that health and safety efforts are adequately resourced.

While our current occupational health and safety system has served us well, we welcome the changes in part III.1. Board staff has been integrally involved in the legislative drafting process, providing advice on an ongoing basis. We are encouraged to see that this legislation contains the legal framework and authority for a modern occupational health and safety regime in the offshore. We are pleased to see that the compliance and investigation powers of our occupational health and safety, operational safety, and conservation officers have been modernized and made consistent in that legislation.

Another benefit of this legislation surrounds transparency. As a regulator of a high-profile industry, we are frequently challenged with the task of releasing information. These new legislative amendments will ensure that we can disclose information related to occupational health and safety should it be in the public interest.

Last, our board strongly feels that each person has a responsibility for the overall safety of the workplace. Owners, interest holders, operators, employers, supervisors, service providers, and front-line employees each have individual and shared responsibilities. Because this hierarchy is outlined in this bill, our board can make greater strides in directing and enforcing responsibility.

Furthermore, we are pleased to see that this bill legally enshrines employee rights to know, to participate, to refuse dangerous work, and to be protected from reprisal. It is my belief that these changes will help to foster a greater sense of safety culture in Nova Scotia’s offshore.

Moving forward, our board will work with both governments to create memoranda of understanding for the administration and enforcement of part III.1 and part III of the legislation. Our designated officers will be appropriately trained, and we will make the necessary changes to our internal policies and procedures. Our HSE committee has proved to be an important function of the board and will continue to provide governance oversight as we move forward in implementing these amendments. Our staff will also work to inform operators and staff of these changes.

Overall, our board welcomes this legislation and looks forward to seeing its benefits realized.

Thank you again for the opportunity to provide the board’s perspective on this matter.

[Scott Tessier, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon. I am the chair and chief executive officer of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, sometimes referred to as the C-NLOPB. I am joined by my colleague, Susan Gover, legal counsel with the board. It's a pleasure for us to be here today to speak in favour of this very important bill.

The C-NLOPB is pleased that Bill C-5 has been introduced in Parliament. We see it as a very positive development in offshore safety. In particular, we appreciate that the bill reflects the following principles: occupational health and safety laws for the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore area should be at least as stringent as those for onshore; joint jurisdiction of both the federal and provincial governments is recognized; and consideration has been given to an effective and efficient use of regulatory resources.

I want to acknowledge the tremendous effort that has gone into this initiative over a number of years by our staff, in particular Howard Pike and Susan Gover, who joins me today. They've brought great value to the development of this package through their expertise and their advice to government officials.

Bill C-5 is an important piece of legislation in that it extends authority and fundamental principles of occupational health and safety to the offshore within the accord acts. These new amendments will provide a comprehensive legal framework to achieve the same protections for offshore workers that onshore workers currently enjoy.

The passage of this bill into legislation would strengthen the way in which we and our colleagues in Nova Scotia conduct offshore safety activities. These amendments create a formal legislative and regulatory framework for occupational health and safety and a more effective enforcement tool kit for our officers.

One of the significant changes proposed in the bill is on matters related to occupational health and safety. The C-NLOPB will also now report directly to the provincial minister responsible, the Minister of Service Newfoundland and Labrador. We look forward to that new working relationship.

The bill also reflects a hierarchy of responsibility in clarifying the roles of governments, regulators, employers, and employees. It recognizes that the operator is ultimately responsible for ensuring worker safety in the offshore environment.

Bill C-5 also grants the offshore petroleum boards additional authority to disclose information to the public related to occupational health and safety. The C-NLOPB is committed to the principles of openness, accountability, and transparency, and we are committed to continuous improvement in this regard. These amendments will guide the C-NLOPB in our decision-making around information disclosure on matters of offshore safety that are in the public interest.

The C-NLOPB would also welcome the establishment of an advisory council with representatives from industry, governments, and employees to provide advice on matters related to occupational health and safety.

As well, the new legislation will clarify any jurisdictional uncertainties respecting occupational health and safety matters, in particular the right to refuse and the requirement for occupational health and safety committees. The C-NLOPB currently administers the provisions of the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act on behalf of the province. Having these principles enshrined in legislation under the accord will ensure that the board has clearer authority to enforce all occupational health and safety requirements.

In October the board held its fifth safety forum, which provided an opportunity for stakeholders in the offshore industry to share information so that safety issues can be proactively identified and discussed. Many of the issues that arose related to matters addressed in the proposed amendments. The following day we held our biannual meeting with the joint occupational health and safety committees from each of the facilities operating offshore. The committees reviewed an overview of the changes proposed in Bill C-5, and the response was quite positive.

An important feature of these amendments is that they ensure the new occupational health and safety regime clearly applies to workers in transit to, from, or between offshore workplaces. This would require that the federal Minister of Transport recommend regulations related to the occupational health and safety of offshore workers in transit. Transport Canada has regulatory responsibility for vessels and helicopters, but the C-NLOPB has an important role in passenger safety with respect to offshore workers. It's therefore important that both regulatory agencies adopt a coordinated approach to safe passenger travel to, from, and between offshore facilities.

Since the crash of Cougar flight 491 and the establishment of the Wells inquiry by the C-NLOPB, there have been considerable improvements to offshore helicopter passenger safety. The actions of the C-NLOPB following this tragedy have captured the interest of offshore regulators worldwide.

I, along with our chief safety officer, recently returned from an international offshore safety conference, where we gave an overview to a very attentive audience about our progress on helicopter safety.

I think it's fair to say that out of these tragic circumstances we are among the world leaders in offshore helicopter passenger safety. The proposed legislative amendments will further strengthen Canada’s leadership in this area.

In response to the Wells report, the C-NLOPB established an implementation team consisting of offshore workers, operators, Cougar Helicopters, and the C-NLOPB. While very good progress has been made in implementing the recommendations of the Wells inquiry, more work remains to be done by a number of stakeholders.

I'll close by saying that the safety of offshore workers is always our top priority. The C-NLOPB welcomes these amendments, and we will be ready to implement them once they are passed by Parliament.

I want to thank you for inviting us here today and for giving us this opportunity to speak to this important legislative proposal.

I look forward to your questions.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's very generous of you.

I'm going to take the two minutes to go over two questions that have come up, which I don't think have been fully answered. Hopefully, you can help us with that.

The first is Mr. Cleary's question around why an independent safety regulator was not put into the bill. Nova Scotia called for it and Newfoundland called for it. We really need an explanation as to why the federal government refused to accept what were clear recommendations from those two provinces.

The other thing that's very helpful for us to know, because we've had contradictions between Bill C-4 and Bill C-5, is to what extent the two ministries are actually working together so that Bill C-4 doesn't destroy any of the benefits that are in Bill C-5. If you could answer those two questions, that would be very helpful for us.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

My time is probably coming short, so can I ask you about incident Nimbyism? I think that in some cases it becomes easy for someone to say, “This isn't my area and it's not my responsibility.” How is that addressed in Bill C-5?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to thank the officials for coming. It's always great when we can have you here to ask questions directly. I appreciate that.

First, I want to follow up on Ms. Block's comments earlier on the development of Canada's offshore resources being essential not only to residents of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, but to all Canadians. The public needs and wants to be assured it's being done with appropriate regulations so they know it's being done safely.

I think this is a critical piece of legislation. You talked about Bill C-5 having the most strident workplace and environmental standards. I'm wondering if you can tell us how the standards that are included in it compare to those in other countries.

[Brenda Baxter]

Bill C-5 speaks to provisions under the proposed amendments under the Canada Labour Code. This is with respect to the offshore accord act, which is a separate piece of legislation.

[Brenda Baxter]

My understanding is this is with regard to Bill C-5, not Bill C-4.

[Brenda Baxter, Director General, Workplace Directorate, Labour Program, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

I can't speak to the consultation process with respect to Bill C-5. My colleagues would have to speak to that.

With regard to the changes that are included from the consequential amendments to the Canada Labour Code, in this act they touch on the issues of information sharing. They touch on the issues of timelines for prosecutions, as well as ministerial permission to appear before a civil or administrative proceeding. Those are the specific changes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I guess my concern is that the government could define “danger” and change the definition of “danger” with absolutely no consultation with employers and employees or experts, as I'm told was done in relation to the changes in Bill C-5 to the definition. I don't know if Ms. Baxter can clarify this and talk about the consultations that took place for redefining “danger” in Bill C-4 and tell us what the plan is in relation to Bill C-5.

Really, is the government planning to do consultations on this?

[Jeff Labonté, Director General, Energy Safety and Security Branch, Department of Natural Resources]

Mr. Chair, and members, thank you very much for the opportunity to present further information on Bill C-5, the offshore health and safety act, a package of offshore health and safety amendments.

My name is Jeff Labonté, and I'm the director general for the energy sector of the Department of Natural Resources. I'm joined by my colleagues, whom the chair has identified.

We're here today to talk on behalf of the department and the deputy minister and minister about Bill C-5 as proposed in the House. It's a set of provisions to amend the accord acts, as well as a number of other acts, and to clarify and strengthen occupational health and safety in the regime for Canada's Atlantic offshore areas where there are active oil and gas developments and exploration activities.

I'll start by pointing out and underlining that the accord acts are somewhat unique as legislation in the federal and provincial versions mirror each other, allowing Canada to continue under what we term shared management regimes with both the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Province of Nova Scotia. We are also actually actively in discussion with the Province of Quebec to establish similar mirror legislation.

By mirror legislation we mean that both federal and provincial legislatures have nearly identical legislation that creates a management structure that allows development to occur on an orderly basis and on a basis that's clarified in law and with a regulatory body. It also means that when amendments are required in the offshore area, there is more than one active party in legislature that requires agreement in terms of how to move forward to make amendments.

Bill C-5 is the culmination of a thorough and sustained process of collaboration with our partners in the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. All three governments introduced this legislation in May of this year. I'm happy to say that the respective provincial governments passed the legislative amendments and they received royal assent in each of the provinces. In the case of the federal legislation, it was tabled; we came to committee; and the legislation has been reintroduced.

Just as joint management is unique and has a unique legislative frame, our Atlantic offshore is also a unique workplace. Not unique, however, is the need to ensure that the offshore industry carries out its activities safely and in compliance with the most stringent workplace and environmental standards. Canadians expect to see a world-class regulatory regime, and the proposed legislative amendments ensure that our offshore regime remains world class and among the strongest.

The proposed amendments clearly establish authority for occupational health and safety in each of the accord acts and provide that they will be administered by our offshore boards, our arm's-length offshore regulators, who are experts in oil and gas. I understand that later this evening you will have before you the heads of two of the regulatory agencies in Atlantic Canada.

The amendments proposed cement in statute current practices in which the offshore boards apply occupational health and safety standards and requirements traditionally as conditions of licence to operate. Thus, the proposed amendments clarify accountability in statute and will introduce other improvements so the regime can continue to build on its existing safety record, which is solid. The legislation proposes specific worker rights, a new governance model, clarity in the hierarchy of responsibility, and new powers to the offshore board and its officers to enhance safety.

I'll walk briefly through each of these, and then I'll turn the conversation over to you for your questions.

With respect to specific worker rights, the amendments include three fundamental worker rights: the right to know, to be informed about the workplace, the hazards that exist, and the safeguards in place to mitigate them; the right to participate, to be a key part of the decisions that affect health and safety in the workplace; and the right to refuse dangerous work. When we're talking about workplaces here in the offshore, we're talking about workplaces that can be hundreds of kilometres offshore in the North Atlantic, and the need for these rights becomes magnified.

The amendments also propose a specific new governance model for the proposed occupational health and safety sections of the accord acts. Provincial ministers responsible for occupational health and safety will have oversight in partnership with the federal Minister of Natural Resources. This reflects the agreement of the original accord act in which provincial social legislation would apply, and in this case we're talking about labour.

Federally, the Minister of Natural Resources will call on the Minister of Labour as needed, and as the legislation outlines, he or she must do so in specific circumstances, i.e., to review and approve regulations and nominations to the occupational health and safety advisory committee.

The federal minister will also call on the Minister of Transport, as needed, to ensure consistency for our workers offshore when they are in transit to and from the workplace by marine or by air. The legislation also establishes an occupational health and safety advisory council for each of the offshore areas and includes the respective chief safety officers as members. We intend that each committee will advise governments on worker health and safety issues, including any concerns that may arise in the context of work authorizations, i.e., those related to the operation of the offshore.

With respect to hierarchy of safety, the amendments proposed create a clear hierarchy of responsibility. In doing so, they address a certain point. One is that no one wants an incident to happen, not the companies, the offshore boards, the federal government, the provincial governments, the unions, nor the workers, who all strive to ensure that incidents don't arise. But when something does, the last thing that anyone wants is that we're not responsible or that someone else is responsible. This legislation proposes that it is the operator who is ultimately responsible for the safety and well-being of all workers, contractors, and even visitors who join the opportunity to visit its facilities. The legislation also spells out the duties of employers, supervisors, employees, contractors, and interest holders, as well as the offshore boards and their officers.

The nature of the offshore is that the work sites are far away and certainly necessitate travel and movement to reach the platforms. The legislation also proposes that the health and safety regime explicitly apply to workers when in transit to the offshore. Any worker can refuse to be transported, without reprisal, if concerned with safety. The legislation also includes powers to establish regulations related to additional safety equipment for workers in transit, and offshore board inspectors have the power to conduct compliance audits on vessels used to transport workers. These measures taken together would enhance safety for workers and those in transit to the offshore.

New powers for the boards and officers is the final area that I wish to speak to. The legislation provides a new suite of powers to offshore board officers to enhance safety. For example, they would have the ability and power to inspect the workplace, to take samples, to meet in private with an individual, and to inspect, as needed, living quarters. Due to the distance and some of the issues I mentioned earlier, these officers have the power to act in exigent circumstances; that is, they could act without a warrant to preserve evidence or to prevent non-compliance. A requisite warrant would have to be sought post-activity and be granted by a judge or equivalent.

The final area that I will cover is that of the chief safety officer. First, to ensure that safety considerations are always represented, the legislation proposes that the position of the chief safety officer can never be held by a CEO of the board. In addition, a chief safety officer would have to review and provide written recommendations related to safety on all operational authorizations. This would formalize a process that both boards have already been following and is a practice of ensuring that safety is a priority. Chief safety officers would also be granted the power to allow regulatory substitutions. These could be made when an operator satisfies the chief safety officer that the substitution proposed provides an equivalent or greater level of safety. The chief safety officer could also require that the operator or employer establish a special operational health and safety committee. The committee would be in addition to the workplace health and safety committee that all workplaces with more than five employees must establish.

In certain special circumstances, the legislation also provides that the provincial minister have an exceptional power to appoint a special officer. The legislation is very clear that this can only be done when there are reasonable grounds to believe that such an appointment is warranted to avoid a serious risk to health and safety, and that risk could not be avoided through the use of any other means available through other acts. Both the federal and provincial ministers would have to agree that the required conditions have been fulfilled. The orders of a special officer would supersede all orders of all other officers, including the chief safety officer.

I'd like to close by saying that this proposed legislation is an important step in clarifying our already excellent offshore oil and gas regime and ensures that occupational health and safety remains a priority. We look forward to your questions and discussion on this proposed legislation as it's being considered by Parliament.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay. We'll see what we can do with that.

Today we're here, pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, November 26, 2013, to study Bill C-5, 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.

We have two one-hour sessions in our meeting today.

In the first hour, we have, from the Department of Natural Resources, Jeff Labonté, director general, energy safety and security branch. Welcome to you. We have Samuel Millar, senior director, frontier lands management division, petroleum resources branch. Welcome to you. We have Anne-Marie Fortin, counsel. Welcome. We have Tyler Cummings, deputy director, frontier lands management division, petroleum resources branch. Welcome to you.

We have as well, from Employment and Social Development Canada, Brenda Baxter, director general, workplace directorate, labour program. Welcome to you.

Go ahead with your presentations as you have them planned, and then we'll get to questions and comments from the committee members.

Go ahead, please, Mr. Labonté.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thanks very much to all of you for your cooperation.

We will come back on Monday to hear from the officials and from the two provincial boards involved in Bill C-5.

Have a great weekend.

The meeting is adjourned.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the second reading stage of Bill C-5.

The House resumed from November 25 consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Monique Moreau]

We limited our comments because of the limited time that we had at our disposal today and the fact that we were speaking to Bill C-4. I can tell you however that the situation you are referring to raised concerns among several of our members.

Drug-Free Prisons Act

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-12, as members will be aware.

However, if I may take advantage of my great privilege to speak in this place, I will preface my comments with special wishes for my friend, Nancy Mutch. Nancy for many years volunteered in Jack Layton's constituency office, and since Jack's death, has volunteered in mine. She has a golden heart, but for a couple of weeks now has been in Toronto East General Hospital under great medical care but engaged in a difficult struggle. She has always paid special attention to what goes on in this place, so I am hoping Nancy will hear me say, when I say it here, to keep fighting, that we love her, and that we need her back on the phones.

Drug addiction in our prison system is a serious problem. We have well established that so far this afternoon. It is serious, because it is linked to inmate violence and gang activity in our prisons. It threatens the safety of our correctional officers, makes it difficult for offenders to effectively reintegrate into the community once they are released, and leaves them much more likely to reoffend.

However, serious problems need serious solutions. Not only does Bill C-12 not offer any serious solutions to the drug problems in our prisons, it in fact offers no solutions at all. It has been a long-standing practice at the Parole Board to use drug tests as a tool to evaluate an offender's eligibility for release. All this bill would do is validate this practice. It is, in effect, another lame effort by the Conservatives to appear tough on crime and tough on drugs without doing anything at all to help us solve the complex problems related to drug use in our prisons.

This bill has been called, so accurately and evocatively, bumper sticker policy by my colleague from Gatineau, the justice critic for our caucus.

The Conservatives' effort to eliminate drugs from our prisons has been a remarkable failure. Proving themselves once again to be the great mis-managers of the public purse, the Conservatives have now spent more than $120 million on this interdiction effort, and according to the correctional investigator, this spending has had no impact on the prevalence of drugs and drug use in our prisons.

To sincerely address the problem of drug use in prisons, the Correctional Service needs to develop a proper intake assessment for all new inmates that can evaluate their needs for addiction and mental health programming and rehabilitation. It is only by providing proper addiction and mental health treatment and education to offenders that we can actually have an impact on the prevalence of drugs, violence, and gangs in our prisons.

According to the correctional investigator, the Conservatives' current anti-drug strategy lacks three key elements. First is an integrated and cohesive link between interdiction and suppression activities and prevention, treatment, and harm-reduction measures. Second is a comprehensive public reporting mechanism. Third is a well-defined evaluation, review, and performance plan to measure the overall effectiveness of these investments.

The correctional investigator's report goes on to say

A “zero-tolerance” stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation offer a far more promising, cost-effective and sustainable approach to reducing subsequent crime and victimization.

Not only have the Conservatives made no progress in improving the drug situation in our prisons, they have actually made the situation worse. While the Conservatives have been happy to waste millions of dollars of public money on “drug-free prisons”, despite a consensus among experts that these efforts are ineffective, they have made cutbacks in core correctional programming that includes support for treatment for addiction and mental illness. Today federal offenders with drug-addiction problems face long wait lists before they can get treatment. There are currently over 2,400 prisoners waiting for addiction treatment in our country in federal prisons, and this situation is absolutely unacceptable.

It is unacceptable, because too often this results in offenders being released from prison without ever having access to appropriate treatment for their addictions. This leaves them more likely to commit crime and end up in the correctional system once again.

While the Conservatives like to think that they are tough on crime and they like to put forward empty gestures such as the bill before us, their policies have actually increased the chances that offenders will be released from prison as addicted to drugs as they were on the day they were arrested. Our communities have become less safe, not more safe, because of these policies.

Last year, the number of people incarcerated in Canada reached an all-time high, with over 15,000 federal inmates, and that number is projected to rise to almost 19,000 by next year. Despite these trends, budgets for addiction treatment and counselling in our corrections system have been decreasing.

Our prisons are becoming more and more overcrowded, with the practice of double-bunking increasingly becoming the norm. This is a situation that fosters the proliferation of gangs and violence in our corrections system. This situation puts the safety and security of our federal corrections officers in jeopardy.

The federal government has a duty to ensure that work conditions are safe for every citizen under federal jurisdiction in this country, but it has a particularly sacred duty to ensure the security of those who put their lives on the line for the public, such as the federal police, our military and corrections employees.

Conservative cutbacks and jail overcrowding have made the job of our corrections officials more dangerous, according to the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. A recent article in the Huffington Post quotes corrections officer Trevor Davis, who works at the William Head Institution on Vancouver Island, as saying, “[The Prime Minister] wants to be tough on crime...but he’s not giving us the resources to do it properly”. As Mr. Davis puts it, “[The Tories] are making our jails unsafe.”

We talked about this matter this morning at length in the context of Bill C-5, about the current, and frankly, previous governments' disregard for the issue of workplace health and safety. Let me come back to Bill C-12 and the bumper sticker approach to drug-free prisons. The bill would not render our prisons drug free. It would simply turn practice into law and leave a dire situation, the need for assessment and treatment for the incarcerated in the interest of public safety, untouched.

According to the report of the Correctional Investigator, close to two thirds of offenders were under the influence of intoxicants when they committed the offence leading to their incarceration. That is a statistic closely connected with the fact that 80% of offenders arrive at a federal penal institution with a past history of substance abuse. The bill would change none of that. It would send offenders back into the population without ever seriously addressing the circumstances that gave rise to their offences.

That is the stuff of this government and its bumper sticker politics. It is beneath this place and all of us, but it is to this kind of politics from the Conservative government that we have unfortunately become accustomed.

With that, I welcome any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

This is a study meant, I think I can safely say, to give us an introduction to the industry, and certainly I've heard a lot of terminology that doesn't really help identify this rare earth element sector clearly. I'm looking forward to questions that would clarify that.

I will take about fifteen minutes at the end of the meeting to deal with two subjects. One is to pass the budget for the committee, or at least look at the budget for this study. The other is to discuss the handling of Bill C-5, which will come to committee. It collapsed in the House today, so it will come to committee next Monday. I want to discuss the time that will be needed to discuss it.

Having said that, let us get directly to questions or comments on the issue we're here to deal with today, starting with Mr. Leef, the best darn MP from the Yukon, for up to seven minutes.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time I have stood in the House to speak about the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. Since being elected in May 2011, I have spoken about the C-NLOPB too many times to count. I have spoken about the problems and shortcomings of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board many times, including patronage appointments.

The highest-profile appointment that comes to mind was the one-time campaign manager of Peter Penashue, the former Conservative MP for Labrador who served as minister of intergovernmental affairs in his short stint in federal politics. That campaign manager was no more qualified to serve on the board of the C-NLOPB than he was to run Penashue's fraudulent election campaign, which is why he is no longer on the board of the C-NLOPB.

For another thing, I cannot say how many times I have made reference to the 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491 that killed 17 offshore workers. The public's confidence in the C-NLOPB has been shaken. There is no doubt about that. Therefore, it is a welcome change to stand in the House today to support a bill that is actually focused on the health and safety of offshore workers.

It is about time. It is well past due. It is an important victory for the labour movement in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia, as well as for provincial New Democrats in both provinces, who have been fighting for this for a dog's age. They have been advocating for a legislated offshore safety regime for about a dozen years.

I stand in support of Bill C-5, an act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act. The bill itself amends the Atlantic accord to place health and occupational safety regimes into legislation. The bill clarifies the individual and shared roles and responsibilities of the federal government, the provincial governments, regulators, operators, employers, suppliers, and employees.

Bill C-5 is based on three basic principles. The first is that offshore occupational health and safety laws must provide offshore workers with the same protection as onshore workers. The second principle is that the legislation protects and enshrines the rights of offshore workers. The third principle supports an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes the shared responsibilities in the workplace.

The bill authorizes both levels of government, federal and provincial, to work together to develop regulations for offshore health and safety. The bill also requires Transport Canada to develop occupational health and safety regulations for offshore workers in transit, such as when they are travelling to and from marine installations, rigs, and gravity-based structures, for example. There are only two ways to get offshore, in case it is not obvious. One is by air, meaning by Cougar helicopter or rescue helicopter, and the other is by offshore supply boat.

Let me be clear: Bill C-5 is positive news. It is good news. It is welcome. However, the bill does not go far enough. I have to stand again today to talk about the federal Conservatives and their failure to put the health and safety of offshore workers front and centre. Before all else, the health and safety of our people must be paramount, but that is not the case.

I referred earlier to the 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491 about 30 nautical miles from St. John's. Seventeen people died. There was one survivor. It was an incredible tragedy, yet another in a string of tragedies for maritime people such as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It was felt in every nook and cranny of Newfoundland and Labrador and around the country.

Justice Robert Wells conducted an inquiry into the Cougar crash. In his words, the most important recommendation of the entire report is recommendation number 29.

That recommendation called for the creation of an independent and stand-alone regulator to oversee safety in the offshore oil industry. Where is the independent safety regulator? It has been three years. The government of Newfoundland and Labrador supports it. Where does the Conservative government stand? Why has it failed to act on the most important recommendation of the Wells inquiry report?

Let me quote from that Wells report. It states:

...the Safety Regulator should be separate and independent from all other components of offshore regulation and should stand alone, with safety being its only regulatory task.... Independent and stand-alone safety regulators are now in place in Norway, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and the same concept is...being developed in the United States for the Gulf of Mexico.

We will remember the Gulf of Mexico and the Deepwater Horizon. The rig caught on fire and almost a dozen workers were killed. There were billions of dollars in damages and cleanup costs.

Is the health and safety of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Canadians not as important as the health and safety of Norwegians, Australians, Americans and the people of the United Kingdom? Of course, it is.

In his inquiry report, Justice Wells wrote that the oversight rules he was recommending would not conflict with the roles of other regulators, but would, when necessary, enhance other regulatory measures. In the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore, Justice Wells said that “it is time for a new”, and I underline “new”, “and more comprehensive approach to offshore safety regulation”. What Bill C-5 fails to do is to create that independent safety regulator.

Earlier this month, Transport Canada released proposed safety regulations for offshore helicopter operations. They were announced about a week and a half ago. The new regulations would prohibit the operation of offshore flights when weather or water conditions would make ditching in the water unsafe. Under the new rules, crew members would also be required to wear water immersion survival suits and operators would have to carry an emergency underwater breathing apparatus for each passenger aboard the flight.

As part of that news, the federal Minister of Transport issued a news release, in which she stated:

Our government is committed to strengthening aviation safety for all Canadians. We have worked closely with the aviation community to develop these new regulations, which will improve the safety of offshore helicopter operations for both passengers and crew.

After that news release was issued and the story broke, I had telephone calls from offshore workers and their families. They were upset. Why were they upset? They were irate because these proposed new regulations are not new regulations. Lana Payne, the Atlantic director for Unifor, which represents workers on the Terra Nova FPSO and the Hibernia oil platform, pointed out that those recommendations were already implemented in Newfoundland and Labrador. The C-NLOPB was responsible for implementing those measures in the aftermath of the Cougar crash. Lana Payne stated:

Nothing in this statement from the minister is going to change one iota in terms of improving safety in the offshore, because most of it has been implemented.

The offshore workers who contacted me were furious. “Why is this a news story?”, they asked. “What is the news in this story? What makes this news? There is nothing new here”. They were absolutely right.

What is also missing from the current regulations, another shortcoming, is the requirement for helicopters to have a 30-minute run-dry capability. In other words, helicopters should have the capability to stay in the air for 30 minutes after their gearboxes run dry of oil. Please God that never happens, but we know it has happened in the past.

That recommendation was made ages ago; it was two or three years ago. What has become of that recommendation? Nothing has become of that recommendation.

We support the bill at second reading. It is a win for offshore workers. It is a long-fought win for the New Democratic parties in both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, and the bill looks good on the industry.

However, if the Conservatives think that offshore workers, their unions, their families, or even the provincial governments are satisfied, they are horribly mistaken. This is but one step in the right direction. Another huge step would take place once there is word that the federal government will finally act on an independent safety regulator.

What keeps me positive is the fact that our offshore workers, their unions, and their families do not miss a trick with the current Conservative government. New Democrats will not stop. We will not relent until the safety of our workers is paramount above all else. They deserve no less.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important to point out today that, although I have had countless opportunities to debate issues in the House of Commons, unfortunately, I have rarely had the occasion to congratulate the Conservatives. As I rise today to speak to Bill C-5, I would like to tell them that, even though we support this bill, we are not completely happy with it. There are still improvements to be made.

I would like to point out that, all too often, the Conservatives complicate things when they could be drafting bills that are in the best interests of Canadians. I am thinking, for example, of Bill C-5. This bill was drafted in consultation with stakeholders and the Atlantic provinces, and even after 12 years of talks—which is quite a long time—it does not take into account the most fundamental recommendations contained in the report.

For that reason, I would like to ask the Conservatives why they are trying to pass a bill that does not go all the way and why they are always passing bills that are full of holes and leaving the courts and Canadians with unclear legislation.

What is wrong with this government is that its members are not capable of taking their responsibilities seriously. Things have reached the point where—as my colleague from British Columbia just mentioned—they are not even debating their own bills. That is completely ridiculous. The government introduces bills and then refuses to stand up for them and respond to Canadians' concerns.

That is what is wrong with this government. I am sorry to say so because I greatly appreciate my colleagues on the other side of the House. This bill could have been a wonderful bill had the Conservatives taken into consideration the main recommendations of the report. All of the experts and groups who were consulted said so. The bill is good but it could have been even better had the government really listened to their requests and simply acted on their recommendations.

Unfortunately, I do not think that we will ever know why the government did not do so. It is too bad that, day after day, this government refuses to debate its bill and improve it in order to give Canadians the best legislation and the best protection possible.

That being said, I would like to address the positive aspects in the bill, because I think it is important to do so. We know the Conservatives’ past history in terms of workers’ rights and in terms of work in general. I hope this shows that they are now taking Canadian workers seriously and that they are coming to their defence.

In my view, enshrining health and safety provisions for Canadians in legislation is very important because it provides clear guidance for employees, employers and provincial regulatory agencies. It should be mentioned that the step we are taking is a very important one. Basically, all the agencies and all the provinces agree that this is a sound piece of legislation. On the other hand, there is still room for improvement in the bill’s content, and I will come back to this point a little bit later in my speech.

As I mentioned, the bill addresses shortcomings. It was in 2001 that the government began negotiations with the provinces, and this bill is therefore the culmination of 12 years of effort.

The government is there to listen to the provinces and not necessarily to play the devil’s advocate all the time. Unfortunately, even when it is playing the devil’s advocate, it is not even able to put forward a bill that implements the recommendations that it said it wanted to implement. That is too bad.

For instance, in 1992, it was decided that health and safety matters would be removed from the legislation. This made things rather hazy. The provinces had to move ahead in different ways without a set of legislative guidelines for enforcing health and safety principles.

We know how complicated things can be in the Atlantic provinces because of offshore oil and gas development. We know, for instance, that BP is beginning new exploration off the coast of the Atlantic provinces. We are moving toward more oil and gas development. This is the perfect time to pass clear-cut regulations to protect people who may even be risking their lives on offshore oil rigs. This is really important.

I would really like to congratulate the government for finally recognizing the rights of these workers. They have the same right to protection as all other Canadians.

I know that the Conservatives have policies on union rights that are quite regressive. We have seen it with Canada Post. We have seen it with Air Canada and Aveos, with the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

I think it is important to note that, perhaps today, the government has done a little bit of soul-searching and has come to the conclusion that it is there to protect workers, not private organizations.

As I said, the bill describes the duties of operators, employers and employees. This is important. While occupational health and safety regulations must admittedly be put in place for the benefit of employers, employees must also have benchmarks for guidance and a clear framework to know exactly where they stand. For example, while an occupational health and safety culture must be instilled in both employees and employers, employees must also be protected.

I want to focus on one very important provision. Bill C-5 gives employees the right to refuse to perform a task that constitutes a danger to themselves. Of course, the bill also makes it clear that employees must have reasonable cause to believe that performing the task would constitute a danger to themselves. I believe this is important. The provisions benefit employers as well as employees.

Another very crucial provision protects employees that report unsafe conditions from reprisals. This might help to prevent major disasters, like the one that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico.

It is important, in my view, to establish an occupational health and safety regime. The government must focus on doing this not only for the safety of Canadians, but also to prevent disasters and to safeguard all Canadians from problems of this nature.

Since my time is running out, I would like to turn to recommendation 29. As I mentioned, the government conducted negotiations and held talks with the provinces for 12 years, but it disregarded the most important recommendation, one on which all provincial organizations and the provinces wanted the government to show some leadership. That recommendation called for the creation of an independent safety regulator.

It is very important to note that a number of countries have already established this type of independent body. As my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier stated earlier, these countries include Norway, the United Kingdom and Australia. The United States is considering the possibility of establishing one such body.

If the government really wants to show that it is willing to take action, it must go all the way and meet all of the provinces’ demands.

In my estimation, this is important. If the government really wants to demonstrate its willingness to take action, it must follow through and meet all of the demands made by the provinces.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

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

I would like to believe that the Conservatives have had a revelation, a eureka moment. Then they would understand that it is important to protect our workers. Unfortunately, if we look at Bill C-4, which I spoke about and which was introduced just before Bill C-5, and if we consider all of the measures that have been implemented by the Conservatives since they won a majority, I have a hard time believing that is the case.

I am not overly optimistic that this government will protect workers in sectors outside the gas and oil industries. Since the start of the Conservative mandate, workers in the federal public service in particular have become this government's scapegoats for absolutely everything. Measure after measure is being adopted to eliminate positions, reduce the quality of working conditions and so on, all because it is easy to do.

I would really like to see the Conservatives bring in more measures to improve working conditions for workers in all sectors, but that is not what we are accustomed to under this government. Unfortunately, I am afraid that this is just a one-off. However, I will give them the benefit of the doubt. We can only hope that things will improve and that the Conservatives will start listening to the workers in various sectors, the people they represent in their ridings. It will be up to the Conservatives to prove that they really have the best interests of Canadian workers at heart.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join my colleagues in supporting Bill C-5 at second reading. Before beginning, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the extraordinary member for La Pointe-de-l'Île.

The bill before us today is important. It is the result of negotiations that have gone on for a long time now, for more than 12 years in fact, between the governments of Canada, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

This bill seeks to remedy long-standing issues in existing legislation relating to health and safety standards in offshore areas, with regard to the oil and gas sector.

If passed, Bill C-5 will enshrine safety practices in legislation, and it will establish a framework that clarifies the individual and collective roles of the federal government, the provincial governments, regulatory agencies, operators, employers, suppliers and workers.

There are three key principles that underlie Bill C-5. First, the legislation relating to workplace health and safety must protect workers in offshore areas as well as workers on land. In addition, workers have the right to know, to participate, to refuse, to be protected from reprisal and to receive adequate protection. Finally, it is necessary to support an occupational health and safety culture that emphasizes shared responsibility in the workplace.

The NDP is proud to support Bill C-5, which will make it possible to establish a stronger system for the protection of workers, which the NDP has been demanding for a very long time now. Clearly, in our view, the bill still does not go far enough, but it is a step in the right direction just the same. That is why we are going to support it. We hope we will be able to work with our colleagues from all parties to improve the bill and ensure that in offshore areas the workers in the gas and oil sector will enjoy adequate workplace health and safety protection.

Quite frankly, I find it rather refreshing that the Conservatives are introducing a bill that provides greater protection for workers' rights. This is surprising. We are not used to seeing the government take this kind of approach—quite the opposite.

Indeed, since winning a majority, the Conservatives have introduced a growing number of measures to erode protections for workers and undermine their rights, which is very unfortunate. This represents a small change in direction. However, we should certainly not forget the various measures the government has taken to effectively undermine the protection regimes in place for our workers in various sectors.

I am particularly thinking of Bill C-377, an underhanded and mean-spirited bill designed to cripple Canadian unions by creating a massive bureaucracy they have to comply with, under the phony pretext of increasing the transparency of organizations. However, everyone knows full well that the Conservatives' real objective in introducing such a bill is to undermine the unions' ability to appropriately represent their members and defend their rights.

We know that the members opposite may find this concept difficult to understand, because in fact, none of them are participating in today's debate. We are talking about protecting workers and implementing very important measures to protect the people who work in the oil and gas industry—which the Conservatives care deeply about. However, they do not even bother to rise, to represent their constituents and defend the rights of workers.

However, they have no qualms whatsoever about introducing a growing number of measures to undermine the rights of workers in various industries. To be honest, this makes no sense at all.

I can mention another measure that attacked workers' rights, namely the special legislation passed by the Conservatives during the Canada Post lockout in June 2011. This legislation forced the employees back to work, obviously under worse conditions, while reducing their pensions and their protections, which were in fact acquired rights. The Conservatives gave themselves the power to gut certain measures that had been negotiated between the employer and employees. The Conservatives, however, clearly decided to circumvent all that.

This also brings to mind the recently tabled Bill C-4, which ironically weakens workers' health and safety protections. It also allows the minister to decide, unilaterally in a totally arbitrary way, which public services to designate essential, thus limiting the actions workers will be able to undertake to defend their rights or demand better working conditions.

Finally, who could forget how the Conservatives have gut the employment insurance system? They are leading a direct attack against seasonal workers all across the country. The Conservatives are not only failing Quebec and the eastern provinces: every part of the country will feel the impact of the employment insurance reform.

In my riding, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, not a day goes by without someone phoning or visiting our office because they are adversely affected by the EI reform, a reform the Conservatives pushed through without consulting the provinces, the territories or labour organizations.

All these examples illustrate the Conservatives' general attitude. Luckily, there is a tiny glimmer of hope now, since Bill C-5 would provide some workers with additional protections. Let us seize this ray of hope.

The NDP will support this bill. I must say again, though, how disappointed I am that the Conservatives are not taking part in the debate on Bill C-5. It may be that they have forgotten how debates work, or that they have no idea how to defend workers' rights, since they have never done it before. Why start now? Even though the Conservatives are introducing a bill about workers' rights, they are so close to big corporate bosses that they can no longer rise in the House and defend workers' rights, even when they should be standing up for their constituents.

NDP members will keep up the good work, doing their best to stand up for Canadians, including those the Conservatives should be standing up for. Today's debate is important. It is a shame so few government members are actually taking part in the debate.

Let us get back to Bill C-5. As I said earlier, this bill will improve the lives of offshore workers in some ways. However, it does have some shortcomings, the most significant of which is the fact that the government refused to create an independent, stand-alone safety regulator for the offshore zone. The governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have repeatedly called for this, but the Conservative government refused at every stage of the 12 years of negotiations.

In his June 2010 report, the hon. Robert Wells made several recommendations, including recommendation 29, which he believed to be the most important one in the report. The recommendation called for the creation of a new, independent and stand-alone organization to regulate safety issues in the offshore. This organization would have to be distinct and independent from all other bodies regulating offshore activities and would be solely responsible for regulating safety issues. Similar organizations exist in Norway, the United Kingdom and Australia. The United States is also considering setting up this type of body in the Gulf of Mexico. The Conservatives, however, have refused to even consider the idea. That is not how an NDP government would have handled things. We think it is important to create that kind of body. We will work toward that, which means that we will continue to pressure the government to create that kind of body, and we will continue to support our provincial partners as they work toward that goal, which is very important.

Various accidents and tragedies have occurred on our coasts, some of them fatal. Several of my colleagues have talked about that in the House, including my colleague from St. John's East. Despite everything, despite the Wells report and despite the fact that people from across the country have repeatedly asked the government for this, the government will not budge. Such an organization is not included in the bill and will not be created.

I think that is a shame because there are some measures in Bill C-5, measures that protect worker health and safety, that the NDP can support. We will be happy to do so.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his fine speech. He mentioned that an NDP government would have taken a different tack in the negotiations on Bill C-5, and he also talked about how an NDP government would have worked with its provincial partners.

I would like to let my colleague say a little more about how an NDP government would work on improving the well-being of Canadians from coast to coast, and more specifically when it comes to protecting the rights of workers on those coasts.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be rising today to speak to the bill before us, Bill C-5. It has a very long name, which I will not repeat.

Members will have heard my caucus colleagues who rose before me to affirm their support for this bill at second reading. I rise to affirm mine as well. However, like my colleagues, I do so not without reservation and not without the promise to do better when we get the opportunity in 2015.

Let me first deal with the positive. Bill C-5 represents the culmination of over 12 years of negotiations between the federal government and the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. It addresses a longstanding gap in legislation, one that has existed since 1992, related to occupational health and safety in the Atlantic offshore oil industry, by placing into the Atlantic accord's authorities the principles relating to occupational health and safety. In doing so, this bill effectively takes current occupational health and safety practices in that industry and codifies them in the form of legislation to be administered by provincial regulatory agencies.

The bill does a number of important things, but first and foremost it outlines the duties of occupational health and safety officers, and provides these officers with enforcement powers, warrant provisions, and inspection and investigation and other measures, in dangerous circumstances.

I mention that, notwithstanding my colleague's commentary earlier in this debate about the apparent conflict between those provisions and the budget implementation bill. It provides employees with the right to refuse to perform an activity that they have reasonable cause to believe is unsafe and affords the employees protection from reprisal for reporting unsafe conditions. This is the keystone to any occupational health and safety legislation. Further, the bill authorizes the relevant federal ministers to develop necessary regulations for both offshore work and the transit to and from that work.

All of what this bill would accomplish the NDP has called for in all relevant jurisdictions for many years. This bill stands for the benefits of a collaborative governance model, one that the government has not put into practice before, but one that sees the federal government and provincial governments working together to solve real problems and make meaningful change.

The bill leaves certain important work undone. The bill does not provide for either an independent stand-alone safety regulator or an autonomous safety division within the regulating petroleum boards.

The recommendation for an independent stand-alone safety regulator was made by the Hon. Robert Wells, as we heard this morning, as the result of his inquiry into the crash of the Sikorsky S-92A helicopter in March 2009, about 30 nautical miles from St. John's. That crash had but one survivor; there were 17 people who died.

Of this proposal, the Hon. Robert Wells wrote:

I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire report.

In making this recommendation, Wells looked to other jurisdictions and found that independent and stand-alone safety regulators were in place in Norway, the United Kingdom, and Australia, with a similar concept being developed, at the time, in the United States for offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Wells wrote:

The oversight role which I am recommending would not conflict with the roles of other regulators, but it would when necessary enhance other regulatory measures. [...] Worldwide, the thinking and practices of safety have developed and changed greatly in the past quarter-century. In the C-NL offshore [Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore oil industry], it is time for a new and comprehensive approach to offshore safety regulation.

He also suggested that should an independent safety regulator not be considered feasible, an alternative along these lines should be implemented: a separate, autonomous safety division of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board with a separate budget and separate leadership, an organizational structure designed to deal only with safety matters, and a mandate and the ability to engage expert advisers to assist in its regulatory tasks; and an advisory board comprising mature and experienced persons who are fully representative of the community and who are not connected to the oil industry.

My deep concern about the omission of action on either the recommendation for an independent, stand-alone safety regulator or its proposed alternative is not informed by my knowledge of the offshore oil industry or of the particular hazards to health and safety related to the work or workplaces of that industry. Rather, it is from a number of years representing workers and workers as supervisors, as broadly understood and defined under occupational health and safety legislation, in an industry with its own particular hazards, the electricity industry.

For those of us who do or have done this kind of work, there is a single principle that governs and motivates what we do, say, think, and propose. That principle is prevention. It is taking all opportunities to ensure that tragedies do not happen, and when they have happened, to prevent them from transpiring again.

The work is always about identifying hazards and risks and removing the hazards, or if removal is not possible, mitigating the risks posed by those hazards. The reason for that approach, that principle, is simple. We talk about workplace or occupational health and safety, but what we are really talking about when we talk about workers are moms, dads, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. We cannot lose sight of that essential truth, because when understood in these terms, when it is understood that what we are doing is ensuring that mom or dad, son or daughter go home from work alive, then the value of prevention becomes, I dare say, obvious.

That responsibility for getting moms, dads, brothers, and sisters home every night falls on all of those in the workplace, most certainly. Occupational health and safety is a shared responsibility. Workers must care for each other, and part of doing so is sharing their knowledge and expertise with all parties in the workplace.

Fundamentally, this is an ethical issue. From knowledge of hazards and risks and knowledge of how to remove or mitigate those hazards and risks flows a duty, a legal duty, yes, but more fundamentally, an ethical duty, to save others from harm. That duty also falls on us here in the House and in all legislatures across this country at least as if not more heavily than it does on anyone or anything else, because we are uniquely privileged to have the power to respond.

That is indeed what this process is about in the House today: the bill and our ability to debate it, identify its shortcomings, and amend and improve it. In all of this is found our ability to do so much to ensure that moms, dads, brothers, and sisters make it home from work.

While we may all embrace the principle of the supremacy of Parliament, that does not obviate or in fact diminish in any way the onus on those who reject the very strong and clear recommendation put forward by the hon. Robert Wells to provide reasons for ignoring or rejecting that recommendation.

Therefore, we will send the bill forward, because in a sense, we have an obligation to. However, there is a question that remains outstanding, unanswered, which is why leave out that important recommendation? The onus to answer that question in a clear and compelling way, the onus to reject convincingly the arguments put forward by Justice Wells in his report, continues to rest on the shoulders of the government, at least until it becomes moot because a better government comes along to put in place that independent, stand-alone safety regulator that will make workers safer, because a mom, a dad, a son, or a daughter is more likely to come home from work because of its existence.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank and congratulate my colleague for his excellent speech.

Bill C-5 is an example of the positive things that can happen when the federal government decides to work with the provincial governments. We do not see that enough from the Conservative government.

I would like to hear my colleague from Chambly—Borduas talk a bit more about what the Conservatives could learn from the kind of co-operation they were capable of with the New Democratic Government of Nova Scotia and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-5 is called the offshore safety act. It amends the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act. Both of these accords require a serious overhaul in relation to their promotion of offshore petroleum development. I do not know whether the official opposition has had a chance to get a legal analysis of this.

Overall I am supportive of the bill, but the part that troubles me is that it seems to be creating new duties on employees. According to proposed section 205.026, “Every employee at a workplace...shall take all reasonable measures to protect their own health and safety....” That is certainly appropriate, but does it create a legal hurdle to an eventual court case? For instance, if we were to have a tragic replay of a helicopter crash, which I hope we never will, would the employees' conduct and execution of due diligence in protecting their own health stand as an obstacle to their pursuing a remedy?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Beaches—East York.

It is not easy to take the floor after such a passionate speech. However, this is an issue that affects us all. Although Bill C-5 is especially important to the Atlantic provinces, we all have a role to play in the overall issue of workers' safety. We definitely need to do more to improve working conditions.

As my colleague said, it is unfortunate that other than this bill—and not to mention the fact that Bill C-4 is undoing some of the work of Bill C-5—the government is not listening to these concerns. I could list numerous examples to demonstrate why I am saying that.

The most important aspect for me is my own riding. When I am replying to people's letters or attending events, I often hear people saying that they get the impression that businesses in our communities are increasingly being given carte blanche. The example that comes to mind in the rail industry is this summer's tragedy in Lac-Mégantic. It is just one example of how deregulation can affect the public. I believe it is relevant because the issue of workers' safety is part of that domino effect.

The federal government is failing to provide leadership when it gives carte blanche to the oil and rail industries. Consequently, those industries will abandon their employees, the workers.

With that in mind, as legislators, it falls to us to ensure that regulations allow people to work in the safest environment possible. Will we ever ensure that 100% of people are protected and that there will be no workplace accidents? Of course not. There is always a potential for risk.

Still, that argument is not enough to convince us, as legislators, to abdicate our responsibilities. That is why we can be proud of the work done by various levels of government with respect to Bill C-5. This excellent example also proves to the government that it is a good idea to sit down with provincial governments from time to time to get results like the one before us today.

That being said, despite the good work that seems to have gone into this bill, it is important to note that there are still some shortcomings. The most significant of these is the absence of the well-known recommendation 29 from the Wells report, a recommendation that speaks to a situation that arises frequently with this government.

This recommendation sought to create an independent organization responsible for workplace safety. Every time anyone recommends setting up an independent organization to evaluate safety or anything else, the government seems to get nervous. We know how it treated the parliamentary budget officer, an independent officer of Parliament who had a job to do in Canadians' best interest. There are other examples too. I remember a bill on military police introduced about a year ago.

Even in that case, the government was not ready to include an independent ombudsman in the bill, a person who would have the power to conduct independent evaluations on behalf of the people. After all, as politicians, we are not always in a good position. Even within these institutions, and particularly within a company, people are not always equipped to make decisions that are not influenced by their own biases. That is why it is important to pay attention to this recommendation.

We would sure like to ask the government member why our recommendation was not included in the bill. Unfortunately, I do not think that we will get an answer unless a Conservative member finally decides to participate in the debate. Since returning to the House and since the Speech from the Throne marked the end of prorogation a few weeks ago, we have heard very little or nothing at all from government members about quite a few bills, including this one.

When the time comes to do our job as MPs, deal with such issues and speak to the shortcomings of a bill, even if we support it, we are unable to ask questions and to have a healthy debate. In the end, we are forced to point out flaws of a bill to government members who, in this case, remain silent.

The bill is at second reading stage. However, when we are in committee, I hope that we will hear more from government members and the parliamentary secretary who are on the committee. Our concerns might finally be addressed. Even though this is a step in the right direction, we would like to know why the government did not choose to follow through and implement all the recommendations in order to have a much tougher bill with respect to workers' rights.

When it comes to the rights, health and safety of workers, we cannot take half measures. However, we will not reject this half measure, as it does represent a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, the NDP believes that we must implement all of the recommendations. We firmly believe in this philosophy, and we will put it in place when we form the government. If a recommendation is found to be lacking, we will at least rise in the House, out of respect for workers, and explain the government's viewpoint, or why some recommendations were set aside.

In conclusion, I would like to use my last two minutes to expand on a point that I made in my speech. This issue primarily affects my colleagues from the Atlantic provinces, but when it comes to the people of Chambly—Borduas, legislators have the mandate to protect not just oil company workers but also the people who work for any of the big businesses that we welcome into our community. That is my first concern about this bill.

These companies have a business to run and it is good for the economy to welcome them into our communities. However, in my opinion, as the MP for Chambly—Borduas, if these companies are going to set up shop in our communities, they must be good corporate citizens and respect the legislators' intent to implement regulations so that they understand that our constituents are the ones working for them and who make it possible for them to do their job and make a profit. It is a symbiotic relationship, a two-way street. In that respect, I do not think that we are asking for much.

We hope that they will agree to this type of proposal and that they will play an active role in it. We often hear what labour federations have to say on this subject, but it is important that the companies play an active role in the health and safety of their workers, who are the Canadians that I have the honour of representing.

It is extremely important.

I am now prepared to take questions from my colleagues.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Beaches—East York is also extremely eloquent on these safety issues. He is absolutely right that the Liberal government was just as bad as the Conservatives. The Conservatives, at least, offered this one bill. They have contradicted it and are presenting other legislation that may eliminate the benefits of Bill C-5, but that is one bill more than the Liberals were able to produce in their years in power. It is a reckless disregard for occupational health and safety. It is a reckless disregard for workers' families.

It is an elitist attitude that somehow the increasing number of workers' deaths does not matter, that it is something that government should not be concerned about. New Democrats take a different view. Workers' safety is essential and every Canadian family, when they send their workers off in the morning to go to work, has the right to expect that at the end of the day those workers are going to come home safely. The NDP caucus is going to continue to fight for that, that all workers' families can expect workers to go to work and come home safely every day of the year.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for St. John's East for his ongoing work in promoting occupational health and safety for offshore workers. He has been a very strong and eloquent voice in the House of Commons about this.

The member is not raising a technical point, but a very important fundamental point. Indeed, workers across the country are now concerned about the impact of the budget bill.

One might ask why the government would put forward Bill C-5 to establish occupational health and safety, but then in the budget bill take away the health and safety officers who are part of the provisions of Bill C-5 and give those powers to the minister. That makes no sense. However, much of what the Conservative government does makes no sense whatsoever.

The Conservatives like to talk a good line about health and safety, but we have seen a number of tragedies in rail safety, pipeline safety, and grain safety increasing because the government is so foolhardy, reckless, and irresponsible.

The Conservatives say that they are against crime, but then they cut crime prevention programs. They say that they are for our police officers and firefighters, yet they refuse to put in place the public safety officer compensation fund that would compensate the families of police officers and firefighters when they pass away in the line of duty. This compensation fund was approved by Parliament.

Everything the government does seems to be clumsily implemented. The Conservatives just do not seem to understand the importance of getting it right in government, and we have seen this.

The member for St. John's East raised this point. We have seen bill after bill botched in the first attempts, which then have to be corrected later on.

This is not a small technical issue. The Conservatives have to come clean and explain why they are trying to cut Bill C-5 at the same time they are presenting it in the House of Commons. I hope somebody from the government will actually understand and explain these discrepancies and contradictions over the course of the debate this afternoon.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House to speak on behalf of the NDP caucus and New Democrats across the country, and indeed all Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans and Nova Scotians on Bill C-5.

Bill C-5 is about 260 pages long. It has some very useful information and some important policy directions in terms of occupational health and safety and is a very important first step. However, in all 260 pages, and we will find New Democrats speaking about this regularly today as we engage in the debate, we will not find three words that are extremely important for Newfoundlanders, Labradoreans, Nova Scotians, and, I think, all Canadians. Those three words are “independent safety regulator”.

Despite the fact that we have been able to drag the government, kicking and screaming, to take action on occupational health and safety in the offshore, we still find resistance from the government to Justice Wells' recommendation number 29 in the Wells inquiry document and to recommendations that have come from throughout Atlantic Canada, particularly from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, to put in place an independent safety regulator for the offshore. We do not really understand where that resistance comes from or why.

Despite the fact that we will be supporting the bill and despite the fact that there are some good elements contained within it, the fact that the independent safety regulator has not yet been put into place by the government is an appalling weakness and shows real disrespect to the offshore workers.

I will start today by saying that I think all of us in the House of Commons owe a real debt to the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, the NDP government in Nova Scotia under Darrell Dexter, and the Newfoundland and Labrador government, because those governments and those federations of labour were instrumental in putting the bill forward.

After a series of tragedies in the offshore area, basically about 14 years ago, there was a real call and push to put in place occupational health and safety standards in the offshore. That ball was dropped by the former Liberal government. When the Conservatives came in, they did make commitments that they would address this persistent problem that could lead to the deaths of offshore workers and that has in fact led to the deaths of offshore workers. The Conservatives said that they would put measures in place.

Tragically, it took the combined weight of those two federations of labour I cited, as well as the Newfoundland and Labrador government and the NDP government in Nova Scotia, to actually push the Conservative government to finally introduce this important legislation.

This is no small thing. Even though we are talking about offshore workers, who are perhaps a small proportion of the overall Canadian economy, the reality is that offshore workers have been hit by a series of tragedies and deaths, ranging from the Ocean Ranger in the l980s through deaths in the 1990s to the most recent and tragic deaths, the 17 Canadians who were killed in the Cougar crash in 2009.

That tragedy was a wake-up call for many Canadians. It told us that work had to be done, and the Nova Scotia government, the federations of labour, and the Newfoundland and Labrador government were able to push the government to finally put into place what is simply a matter of good sense and a matter of common decency: occupational health and safety standards.

We have also had very strong advocates in the House of Commons. I would like to pay particular tribute to the member for St. John's East, who has done a remarkable job of raising these issues. He has been phenomenally eloquent. He is normally a very eloquent gentleman, but he has been even more eloquent on this issue and has spoken up for the offshore workers in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia. I say to the member for St. John's East—through you, Mr. Speaker—that he has done a phenomenal job and really deserves the thanks of Canadians across the country.

I am citing the work of the member for St. John's East, the work of the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and of Newfoundland and Labrador, and those two federations of labour that I mentioned earlier because the government has shown no leadership whatsoever when it comes to offshore safety.

Coming from British Columbia, I can cite three facts that are appallingly bad examples of poor judgment on behalf of the government since it has come to power.

In British Columbia, on the other side of the country, we have seen first-hand how irresponsible this government has been. That is why the introduction of this bill, which takes some significant steps, although it does not go all the way to the independent safety regulator, is an important contrast to what the government's trend has been, generally speaking.

Last year in British Columbia, after a phenomenal public outcry from British Columbians, the City of Vancouver, and a whole range of municipalities throughout the lower mainland, we saw that the government was not listening to their call to keep in place the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

This is the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano, in Vancouver, B.C. It has actually saved lives over the entire period of its existence. The government, for reasons it has still not explained adequately in any way, decided it was just going to shut down the Coast Guard station.

That could mean that next summer we could tragically, but hopefully not, be looking at the deaths of British Columbians as a result of what was a very foolish, foolhardy, and reckless decision.

Everyone in British Columbia spoke out against it except Conservative MPs. Everyone in British Columbia, from those involved in the health sector to those involved in the boating sector, as well as municipalities and elected officials at the provincial level, said that closing that Coast Guard station was going to put lives in jeopardy, but the government did it just the same. It was inconceivable to me that it would be that reckless and foolhardy with public safety, yet it has been.

The government then moved on, after closing that down, to close down the marine traffic control centre in Vancouver. This facility is an important component of safety as well. We have seen similar closures in other parts of the country, both in the Coast Guard and in marine traffic control, in places like Quebec City. These are foolhardy, reckless, foolish decisions that put public safety at risk, yet the government has done it. It has closed the marine traffic control centre.

Closing off a series of appallingly foolish decisions on behalf of the government was the closure of the emergency oil spill centre. This is a government that does not want to listen to the public in British Columbia on the northern gateway project. It wants to ram the project through despite the fact that public opinion in British Columbia is about 80% opposed. It jeopardizes thousands of jobs, while at the same time it would create just 104 full-time jobs when it is actually built. It is absolutely foolish.

What was the government's response to the increased concerns about oil tankers on the coast and the government's inability to put in place a public safety regime? It closed the emergency oil spill response centre. That is unbelievable. It closed down the emergency oil spill response centre, and now there is a 1-800 number in Ottawa. If there is an oil spill, British Columbians can phone some 1-800 number in Ottawa. Maybe there will be somebody to answer, or maybe they will have to leave a message.

The contempt that the government has shown for the people of any coast, whether we are talking about the Arctic coast, the Atlantic coast, or the Pacific coast, is very palpable.

The Minister of Natural Resources, in an attempt to try to save face after a series of foolish, reckless, and irresponsible actions, held a press conference to say that the government was going to protect the coast. We can all recall the safety vessel that the government convoked for this press conference actually ran aground before the press conference was held.

It shows both the Conservatives' incompetence and a degree of irresponsibility. At the same time, it shows their reckless disregard for facts in their attempt to try to provoke spin, rather than put in place a regime that actually guarantees the environmental safety of the coast and public safety.

When we talk about Bill C-5 being an exception to a generalized rule, whether we are talking about Quebec City or the Atlantic coast or the reckless disregard for British Columbians on the Pacific coast, we can see on all coasts a similar attempt by the government to shut down institutions that should be there for the public safety. We have one bill that does show improvement. This is why I say that the exception proves the rule. Bill C-5, despite the fact that it does not put in place an independent safety regulator, is the only exception to what has been a litany of irresponsible, foolish, foolhardy, and reckless decisions by the government.

We are not just talking about marine safety. When we look at the number of pipeline spills, we see it has tripled under the Conservative government. When we look at the Transportation Safety Board of Canada's statistics, we see the number of leaks and spills under this government has substantially increased because it simply does not take public safety seriously.

When we look at rail safety, the tragedies and the number of fatalities increasing each and every year under the Conservative government, we can see that what we have is a toxic mix of a government that is reckless and foolhardy with public safety and the environment. It just does not seem to care about Canada, Canada's environment, or Canadians.

This brings us back to that singular exception, Bill C-5. It is the one thing the Conservatives can point to that they have put forward, thanks to public pressure from the federations of labour, from the governments in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, and from good NDP MPs.

However, it lacks the independent safety regulator that I mentioned earlier. How important is that? Let us hear from Justice Wells, who conducted the inquiry into the tragedy of the Cougar crash in 2009, when there were 17 deaths and only one survivor. That means there were 17 families in mourning, families that lost their breadwinner forever. We can imagine the intense mourning over these types of deaths, which do not need to happen.

One might say that 17 deaths are only part of the 1,000 workers who will lose their jobs this year, but our point is that we need to bring down the death rate across the country. We need to expand occupational health and safety. We need the federal government to show leadership in this regard.

What we have heard from Justice Wells and from key people in Atlantic Canada is that an independent safety regulator will be a key component in bringing down those deaths and reducing the number of families in mourning and that have to live with the indescribable tragedy of losing a loved one in the workplace, whether it is offshore or in any other workplace.

The Hon. Robert Wells in the 2010 Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry said:

I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire Report....I believe that the Safety Regulator should be separate and independent from all other components of offshore regulation and should stand alone, with safety being its only regulatory task....I believe the safety regulator should be powerful, independent, knowledgeable, and equipped with expert advice, hence my following recommendations...It is recommended that a new, independent, and standalone Safety Regulator be established to regulate safety in the...offshore.

That is clear. It could not be more clear. However, it is not only Justice Wells' voice that has been so eloquent in this regard. The Minister of Natural Resources in Newfoundland and Labrador said that while discussions had been ongoing with the federal government on the implementation of this recommendation 29 to establish an independent safety regulator, the federal government had not indicated any interest in establishing this separate safety agency.

Lana Payne, the president of the of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, said:

It's a positive step forward for health and safety for workers in the offshore, but it's not an independent safety agency, and that's ultimately what we do need for the offshore, and we'll be continuing to push and advocate for that.

The inquiry of Justice Wells is very clear. Workers are very clear. The governments in Atlantic Canada are very clear. The independent safety regulator is a best practice that other governments have put into place.

The member for St. John's East mentioned this in his speech a few weeks ago, when he talked about Norway, Australia, and the United Kingdom putting in place independent safety regulators. The workers deserve no less.

The steps listed in Bill C-5 would be initial steps, but without the independent safety regulator, which Justice Wells called his most important recommendation, the government is not putting into place the safety regime that workers deserve and that workers' families need to protect the offshore workers and to protect their families so that we do not see the tragedies we saw with the Cougar crash in 2009 or the tragedies we saw with the Ocean Ranger and with other deaths offshore.

Today in Canada, four workers will die at work. Four workers will go to work in the morning, either offshore for a few weeks or somewhere else in Canada, and four of them will pass away.

Tragically, the numbers since the Conservatives have come to power have increased. The average over the last 20 years was 900 deaths a year, which is an appalling level.

However, under the Conservatives, more recently, we have seen over 1,000 workers die every year. That is a substantial increase in the number of families mourning, a substantial increase in the number of workers' families that have lost a loved one and have been left with that indescribable sadness that never goes away. When a family, sons and daughters, lose a father or a mother, that loss never goes away. That tragedy is never something from which they can come back. When a husband loses a wife or a wife loses a husband, when they got married until death do they part, there is an undesirable level of sadness and tragedy.

Yet under the current government, we see a steady increase in the number of workers' deaths. It is simply because this government shows no leadership when it comes to putting in place the kinds of practices that will lower the number of workers who die in these needless tragedies.

The federal government should be showing that kind of leadership. The federal government should be taking Bill C-5 and saying, yes, that it is going to put into place, according to what Justice Wells has recommended and according to what Norway, Australia, and the United Kingdom have done, an independent safety regulator. Workers on the offshore deserve no less.

Then beyond that we offer to work with the government to ensure we start to lower the tragic death rate that we have seen with workers across the country. We will continue to make this offer. Even though the current government seems not inclined to take workers' safety and occupational health and safety seriously, we will continue to offer that help.

However, the tragedies seem to be increasing. Very many people are saying, and with reason, that we need a new government, a government that would put workers' safety and occupational health and safety first, a government that would show that leadership nationally, working with the provinces, to dramatically lower the death rate.

One worker's death is too many. A thousand workers' deaths a year are far too many. We have to stop the tragedies. We have to show leadership. That is why we will continue to press in the House of Commons for real leadership, for independent safety regulators, and for addressing the tragedies that happen each and every day.

Four workers today will lose their lives. That is four too many.

Let us all work together so one day we can stand in the House and say that no workers lost their lives this day, this week, this month, and that Canada is succeeding in putting in place that occupational health and safety regime that all workers in Canada deserve.

The House resumed from November 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, I can attest that I and our government find it regrettable, to say the very least, that we hear comments such as this from the House leader of the official opposition when, in fact, the opposition members themselves are delaying important pieces of legislation through the continuance of filibustering and delaying tactics here in the House and at committee.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you and the opposition House leader that we will continue debating the NDP's regrettable amendment to block second reading of Bill C-2, the respect for communities act. However, if the opposition members finally allow some progress on that critical file, we will turn to Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act, at second reading.

Tomorrow we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act.

Monday, before question period, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-5, the offshore health and safety act. After question period, we will return to Bill C-12.

On Wednesday, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act.

That debate will continue on Thursday, but if we cannot finish Bill C-2 today, we will make time for that debate on Thursday morning.

Tuesday, November 26, as the government House leader announced earlier in the week, will be the fourth allotted day, which will see a Liberal motion debated.

During the constituency week, the member for Papineau certainly put forward a number of unusual ideas, some of which, or maybe one of which, may be put forward as a motion for the Liberals' allotted day. Some of those unusual ideas include the member for Papineau, the leader of the third party, saying that he admired the dictatorship in Communist China. He also advocated to minors the legalization of drugs. Finally, the leader seemed to suggest that he is putting the interests of criminals ahead of those of their victims by reducing sentences for serious crimes.

We find that reprehensible, but we have yet to see how the Liberals will approach those very important issues, in the eyes of the Liberals, come their allotted day next Tuesday.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, you have only yourself to blame for that one, I am sorry to say.

The questions this week, looking forward to government business, are a bit complicated in that there have been so many scandals floating around the federal government and other right-wing governments across the country, particularly in Toronto, that it has been difficult to keep up with the actual business of the House.

Traditionally, right up until the very last general election, it was always the practice of this place to have the parties consult constructively on what could be done in Canada's House of Commons. That practice has utterly vanished under the current government.

Even when the opposition suggests passing legislation quickly, the government refuses our co-operation. It is really strange and contrary to the practices of this place.

Today for instance, we could have easily passed an important bill on air and sea transport, Bill C-3, as well as a bill on offshore health and safety, Bill C-5, and sent them to committee. Some members still wanted to speak to those bills, but I am sure they both could have been sent to their respective committees if we had debated them today.

Instead of allowing for the debate and passage of these two very important bills, which the government has said are critical, it has chosen not to take the course that would allow Parliament to do its job and effectively pass legislation, which it is constantly demanding and forcing when it feels as though it does not have its way. Instead of debating those bills, to which we have some agreement, the government has chosen from its order one of the most ideologically motivated bills I have ever seen. It is a bill that the opposition parties are united in opposition against.

I would add some causal note to this that while those of us on the New Democratic side are against this bill and stand and speak to it, the Liberal opposition way is to just utter its misgivings about the bill. Its members have chosen never to rise and address the actual issues. That is their choice, not ours, on this partisan attack against science.

All the same, I would love to know when we can get back to Bills C-3 and C-5 so that these important bills can make their way to committee for further study and investigation by experts and be one step closer to becoming law in Canada.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

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

Mr. Speaker, that was from one of the finest MPs ever to grace the House of Commons. I am sure that my colleague from Quebec will have a long and outstanding career in this great legislature that we call la Chambre des communes.

The member brings up a very important point. It is not just oil and gas safety but also rail, vehicle, and school bus safety. The reality is that nobody in this House has all the answers. We need collaboration, not just with other parliamentarians and the bureaucrats that hang around us but with the provinces, industry, experts, workers, and management. We should all work together, not just in terms of the oil and gas sector and Bill C-5 but in all aspects.

Again, I cannot help but think of those poor unfortunate folks in Lac-Mégantic and what happened earlier this summer with the rail. It is something that did not have to happen, but it did, and now we are reacting to it.

I know that the Conservatives are not the greatest at collaboration, but maybe this time they will be. I am always a hopeful fellow. My mom always said to look on the bright side. God love her, she is 91. I just want to say “Hi, mom.” She said that sometimes if you just keep talking to them and keep convincing them, maybe the Conservatives will do the right thing.

Through collaboration, we will be able to get this right. We will bring in the amendments and work with other people to ensure that the proper safety procedures for offshore oil and gas are implemented once and for all and that the human and financial aspects are there as well. We must have the money and human resources to back up this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just have to point out the Westray mine in Pictou, Nova Scotia. It was in the Stellarton, New Glasgow area. It showed what happens when we do not have proper regulations in the coal mining industry. Unfortunately, a lot of people lost their lives in that explosion. After the inquiry, it was very clear that the safety regulations were extremely relaxed. They were not followed at all.

This is what happens when there is no independent oversight or proper, thorough, thoughtful regulation to protect workers, and not just workers but management as well, who were working in those very unforgiving and dangerous climates.

The Westray mine was a classic example of how it can be screwed up. The reality is that it was simply avoidable. It did not have to happen. When there are companies that do not think about the workers' safety or their families, this is what happens. We do not want to go back to that history again.

I am hoping that these regulations that come forward in Bill C-5 go through a careful peer review by the committee once we bring in the witnesses, Mr. Wells, the provinces, and everybody else to ensure that we get it right. It is critical to get it right.

As I said earlier, my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst knows exactly what it is like to work in a mine. They are not the safest conditions in the world. My colleague from Timmins—James Bay knows exactly what it is like up in Kirkland Lake for the men and women who work as hardrock miners. The same kinds of hard work and dangerous situations exist in a different format out on the oceans. We had the Ocean Ranger. We had the incident of the helicopter going down. Both cases were very unfortunate.

As Parliament, not just as a government, we have a duty to those workers and their families to ensure that we get it right so that nobody else has to lose a life in the dangerous situations in the economy and in the work they do out on the east coast of Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put on the record that I am wearing a tie tonight.

I want to thank all the colleagues, but before I start I first want to say a little prayer and express thoughts for the 17 people who were killed in the terrible incident in March 2009 when the aircraft went down. Unfortunately, I guess sometimes it takes an accident for good things to happen. I want members of the government to know that the NDP will be supporting the bill at second reading, on the premise and in hope that the government will recognize that recommendation 29 is extremely important.

To reiterate, section 29 would make the safety aspect of the board completely stand alone. The reality is that we cannot have the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board or the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board patrolling themselves when it comes to safety. We need to have someone who is independent, a firm that has the authority to go in and double-check all the safety standards, to ensure that the legislation and the laws of the land are being monitored and followed properly, and to also ensure that the regulatory board does what it does in terms of oil and gas exploration but that the safety aspects of that are done by an independent board. Mr. Wells' report was very important.

The fact is that Bill C-5 is a culmination of over 12 years of negotiation, starting in 2001 between the federal government and the Provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The proposed amendments to the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Atlantic accord implementation act aim to strengthen offshore health and safety practices in the oil and gas industry. Bill C-5 seeks to fill a legislative gap created by the 1992 amendments to the Atlantic accord that separated the health and safety issues, resulting in the provincial offshore petroleum regulatory agencies enforcing health and safety issues contained in draft regulations. Bill C-5 largely puts existing practices into legislation by placing authority and the fundamental principles of occupational health and safety within the accord acts. This is an important improvement to the offshore occupational health and safety regime that the NDP has been calling for in all relevant jurisdictions.

Very clearly, in July 2011, in phase II of the inquiry's report, the Hon. Robert Wells wrote:

The oversight role which I am recommending would not conflict with the roles of other regulators, but it would when necessary enhance other regulatory measures....

Worldwide, the thinking and practices of safety have developed and changed greatly in the past quarter-century. In the C-NL offshore, it is time for a new and more comprehensive approach to offshore safety regulation.

Bill C-5 fails to establish the options set out in recommendation 29 of the Wells report. The Newfoundland government stated that while discussions have been ongoing with the federal government on the implementation of recommendation 29, the federal government has not yet indicated any interest in establishing a separate safety agency. The NDP will remain firm and is steadfast in ensuring that the federal government and the provincial governments work together to ensure this independent, stand-alone safety aspect.

We are not quite sure why the government would have been reluctant to put this in there, but there has to be a particular reason why and we would like to know why. We were hoping that when we support the legislation being sent to the committee these questions will be asked. I am glad to see that the Liberals and most members will be supporting it. Hopefully Robert Wells will be invited to reiterate as to why he felt this was such an important recommendation. As well, we are hoping that the committee members on both sides will ask, and maybe just once in a committee will be able to work together to change the Conservatives' mind on the legislation and put this very important aspect into being.

While I am on my feet talking about the Canada-Newfoundland and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and the accords, I cannot help but go back into a bit of the history of how the hon. member for Central Nova once said in the House of Commons that if somebody in his own party voted against the budget, they would not be kicked out of the caucus.

As members know, there was quite a debate here in the House of Commons over the Atlantic accord in terms of whether there were gaps, whether there were caps to the accord, whether Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia were receiving all the benefits attributed to them from the offshore oil and gas sector. There was quite a heated debate going on in the House of Commons back and forth for quite some time.

Mr. Bill Casey, the then hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, was quite adamant and correct in his opposition to the Conservatives' plan against that accord.

I repeat, the reality is that the member for Central Nova said that they would not kick people out of their caucus who voted against the budget. Very shortly after that, the hon. Mr. Casey stood up in the House and voted against the government's budget when it came to the Atlantic accord. Before he even sat down, his computer was completely emptied and the accounts that he had with the riding association were done. That man was persona non grata before he even sat down in his chair after the vote. I remember the whip of the party at that time doing that.

The fact is that we have to ask ourselves this. When it comes to the accord discussions, did the Conservatives say one thing and do another? It was a cabinet minister who said they would not kick people out of their caucus if they voted against the budget. That is what Mr. Casey did, and before he even sat down, he was toast. Everybody knows that if a politician is on the front page of the fold of any newspaper in the country in a positive light for six days in a row, he or she is cooking with gas. Actually, that is what we want.

The problem with all of that was the discussion of the cap and whether we on the east coast were getting all of the benefits attributed to both provinces from the oil and gas sector that we thought we deserved.

I personally want to thank Mr. Williams, the former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Dr. John Hamm, the former premier of Nova Scotia, for working with the Martin government to secure those additional monies, which I believe was almost $2 billion going to Newfoundland and Labrador and about $800 million going to Nova Scotia, that went toward paying down the respective debts and services within the provinces. That was a good thing. However, they should not have had to go cap in hand in order to do what is considered the right thing.

Getting back to Bill C-5, I want to thank the government for the opportunity to bring this forward and that it at least understands that the good people of the east coast have asked for this for a long time. Unfortunately, as stated by other members in the House, it took a tragedy wherein 17 very good people lost their lives, but fortunately one person did survive. What were the reasons for it? We can argue that it was the helicopter and everything else. However, if this legislation had come before that incident happened, maybe those lives could have been saved, although we do not know for sure. We will never know. That is speculation, and I would not want to impugn the reputation of anyone in that regard. I know that Cougar Helicopters in Newfoundland and Labrador is a very good company. It has wonderful people and great management. It has been a long-time employer in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This was a most unfortunate incident.

However, I and my party are hoping, and I am sure most parliamentarians on all sides would hope, that the regulatory framework in Bill C-5 will go forward to improve the aspects of health and safety in this regard so that there would be no other incidents in the future.

While I am on my feet, I also want to mention the Ocean Ranger, which went down in 1982, killing an awful lot of guys who were working on the rig. That was a horrible incident at that time. Fortunately, we have never had another incident like that again on the east coast. However, as members know, the governments of the day move fairly quickly to work with industry and the provinces in order to improve and enhance safety features for the men and women who work on the oil rigs. It has now been almost 31 years and we have not had another major incident of that kind. Thank God for that, because when the Ocean Ranger went down, it was unbelievable.

I encourage every single person in the House, and those who are listening, to pick up a copy of Ron Hynes' song Atlantic Blue. He refers to the Ocean Ranger and that incident. It is one of the most haunting and beautiful songs the master of a thousand songs has ever written. It is a beautiful song about those men who served on the Ocean Ranger, which unfortunately went down in that horrific storm in 1982.

We hope that Bill C-5 will do what it is intended to do. We also hope that the government and the committee will be amenable to recommendations, changes, and amendments to ensure that when it leaves the House and goes over to the Senate, they will do a proper and thorough job of so-called sober second thought to ensure that it does exactly what all of us hope it will do. Most important is that we have an independent safety regulator in this regard, because that is the crux of all of this.

Mr. Wells wrote a very well-thought-out and enhanced report and spent a lot of money doing it. He is an esteemed gentleman who knows exactly what he is talking about. The people who were with him listened to the testimony from the witnesses and understood. Then following that, recommendations were made. Just maybe this time we can get it right.

Hopefully, we can enhance other safety regulations in the future across our country so we do not have to wait for an accident before we do the right thing.

Why does the government not want to have an independent safety regulation board in this particular regard? What is it that the government is so opposed to? I am not sure anyone here has ever answered that question. We will keep asking it and keep on going in that regard.

The reality is that this particular legislation would enhance the safety of the men and women working in the offshore, but also those flying the helicopters back and forth. Also, if we have enhanced safety procedures and everything else, it gives people and the industry the confidence that there are proper regulations in place to ensure that all the checks and balances are done. Maybe with this proper enhancement it would improve and enhance the aspects of oil and gas exploration off the east coast. One never knows. The reality is that everyone knows that there are opportunities here to work in the offshore.

I do not know, Mr. Speaker, if you have ever been in the North Atlantic, 200 miles off the coast in November, but I do not think it is the most pleasant place to be on the planet. However, those brave Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and everyone else working there, are some of the hardiest souls ever. They spend an awful lot of time away from their families to work on the rigs for a certain period of time. Then they come off again. They enjoy that work because it pays them very well in health benefits as well as wages. It is an important aspect to the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. Thus, it is an important aspect of our economy right across the country.

The minimum that we can do is to ensure that the men and women who literally risk their lives to provide the energy supplies that we use on a daily basis are confident that the provincial and federal governments have their safety in mind, are listening to them and the industry, and are ensuring that when they go to work they do not have to die.

April 28 is our national day of mourning when we recognize all the people who have gone to work in the morning and unfortunately, did not come home at night to their families. In Nova Scotia alone, we have had 28 occupational deaths this year, and the year is not even over yet. That is 28 too many people who have passed away.

I am sure I speak for all parliamentarians when I say this: no one should get up in the morning, go to work, and not come home again. This is not just about Bill C-5 and the safety regulations of the offshore of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, but right across the country. We should be working with all companies. We should be working with the labour movement. We should be working with the provinces and the municipalities, anyone out there who can provide the proper advice to ensure that every single person who goes to work in the morning, or on shift work, knows that they will be able to go home to their families. That is the crucial aspect. It is what I believe is the litmus test for this legislation if we are to indeed improve it.

It was already done after 1982. We have not had another rig incident since then. People are probably very proud of the fact that nothing has happened in 31 years, but unfortunately, it took the 1982 incident for that to come into being. Unfortunately, it took a helicopter coming down, which took the lives of 17 people, to once again get governments, and for that matter all parliamentarians and provincial folks, to react to this particular issue.

It should not happen. We should be sensible enough, proactive enough to ensure that when industries like the oil and gas sector off our coastline are in effect and working well, that before an incident happens we have ensured the highest level of safety protection is there. That is just like how we would push to make sure that the highest environmental standards are there, because if we have proper environmental standards, proper health and safety standards, then the industry, the workers and management, the people who work in those industries will be allowed to flourish.

On behalf of our federal New Democratic Party, I want to personally say that we will be supporting this legislation. I am proud of my colleagues from St. John's East and St. John's South—Mount Pearl who have been big promoters and supporters of this. I am also proud of the provincial NDP government, especially Mr. Frank Corbett, who was very active in promoting this. Unfortunately, we are not the government there anymore, but maybe one day we will be back.

The reality is that this is an important issue that crosses political lines. It crosses bipartisanship in terms of Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats. It crosses provincial concerns as well. I think it is vital that this legislation is passed, with the caveat that the government and everyone involved carefully and seriously look at recommendation 29 to ensure that an independent safety regulator is going to be there.

That sector may grow. It may become enhanced. If more oil and gas is found, and a lot of deposits that may be out there, we are going to see a lot more expansion and a lot more traffic. We needed to have this type of legislation as of yesterday, not necessarily tomorrow.

With that, I will be more than happy to take any questions or comments that the good people of this legislature may have. I understand that my hon. colleague from Acadie—Bathurst wishes me to say a couple of more words, but I am more or less done. I would be happy to take any questions.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minister of Natural Resources said that although discussions with the federal government regarding the implementation of recommendation 29 are ongoing, Ottawa has not shown any interest in creating a separate body to regulate safety.

Someone mentioned timelines. It took over 10 years for Bill C-5 to be finalized and debated in this House. In this case, we are also talking about a deficiency the Conservatives seem to have in their attitude towards their provincial counterparts.

We also saw this with the health transfers and plans to enhance a Canadian pension plan. We see this in other areas as well. What is happening in my colleague's riding regarding employment insurance is a very good example of this Conservative government's lack of co-operation, failure to listen and lack of leadership when it comes to working with the provinces.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her excellent question. I would also like to thank her for the work she is doing in her riding and her fondness for the people of Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine. I know that she cares about them.

The long wait has made people very concerned about the offshore oil and gas industry. Had the government introduced regulations and laws to protect the health and safety not only of workers, but also of the environment much sooner, people in our region would have had an opportunity to share their ideas long before now. They would have had a chance to air their concerns, and they might have found their way to a consensus about how to develop marine resources.

Unfortunately, the government did not do that, and that is why people are hesitating now. They are very scared. They are worried about the fact that this could endanger all of the region's other industries, including tourism and fishing. Now, people are just not ready to give the go-ahead to offshore oil and gas development, and they have good reason to be concerned. The government could have implemented regulations and laws to ensure safe and sustainable development, but it did not. It did the exact opposite.

Because the government eliminated all kinds of environmental protections in Bill C-38, and because of the shortcomings of Bill C-5, which is before us now, people are not at all keen to give the go-ahead to offshore oil and gas development. The government should have been more reassuring. The government is supposed to protect the people, but it seems more inclined to do the opposite and endanger them. That is absolutely unacceptable.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be here to debate Bill C-5. It is an unexpected surprise for me to be able to support this bill, at least at second reading. The opposition rarely agrees with the government's proposals, particularly in matters of workplace health and safety.

In its ideological way, the government generally believes that occupational health and safety is not a priority, but something that gets in the way of companies trying to make a profit. The opposite is true. Companies that have healthy, well-trained employees who work safely improve their productivity and their contribution to the Canadian economy.

In eastern Canada, Atlantic Canada, eastern Quebec and my riding, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, people are very familiar with occupational health and safety issues. People in mining, forestry and fishing, even people who work on pleasure boats, risk their lives every day to build Canada's wealth. We have to help them.

There have been many tragedies. One of them led to the Wells inquiry, an inquiry into safety that focused on the transportation of offshore oil and gas development workers.

People in my region are talking about this issue. Oil and gas development is on the rise in the Atlantic Ocean and is likely to begin in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well as in the Arctic.

We absolutely have to have tools that make workers feel completely safe at work. That is the part of the bill before us that I find most interesting. Offshore workers will have the same rights as those who work on land, at least when it comes to workplace health and safety. Many people are surprised to discover that not all workers in Canada have the same rights. Their rights change from province to province and in regions under shared jurisdiction, such as oceans. Workers also have different rights depending on whether they are under federal or provincial jurisdiction.

Today we see that Bill C-5 is trying to harmonize the legislation at the federal and provincial levels. We have waited a long time for this progress to be made. As I said a few moments ago, we have waited 14 years for this bill to be introduced in the House of Commons. We have waited long enough

In Nova Scotia, the NDP government brought forward a bill that would be the equivalent of Bill C-5. The Progressive Conservative government of Newfoundland and Labrador also did its part. The only party we were waiting for was the Conservative government, which seems to infringe upon the rights of workers all too extensively and frequently. The Conservatives were dragging their feet. Now they have finally introduced this bill, which unfortunately does not go far enough. However, it is still a step in the right direction.

The government is moving in the right direction in terms of harmonizing legislation at the federal and the provincial levels. This is important because when people are injured, or risk their lives for work-related reasons, they need to know that they are adequately protected by their governments. Again, the current federal government often seems to forget that it is there to protect Canadians and not to allow for mere exploitation.

Unfortunately the government did not go far enough. The Wells commission really started a major debate on the health and safety of workers in marine areas, especially in the oil and gas development industry.

In recommendation 29, Commissioner Wells proposed establishing independent and stand-alone organizations to regulate health and safety issues. Bill C-5 does not address that recommendation, and one has to wonder why that is. What could have prevented the government from enshrining in law the most important recommendation, as Commissioner Wells described it when he presented his report? He did not say that it was frivolous or incidental; he said that it was likely the most important factor. Unfortunately, we do not see any sign of it in the bill. We will support the bill at second reading, but it will be interesting to see what the witnesses say before the parliamentary committees. It will be particularly interesting to hear workers from the maritime regions talk about the tools they need. I would also like to hear what they think about Commissioner Wells' 29th recommendation. These workers are much more familiar with the reality than we members of Parliament are. I hope that they will have a chance to speak to this issue and that they will be called to testify before the parliamentary committee. In the meantime, we are debating this bill at second reading so that it can then be studied in committee.

The legislation is designed to improve laws governing oil development organizations in the maritime regions, including the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and its equivalent in Nova Scotia, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. Both of those organizations have the authority to manage oil development. We know that workers in Newfoundland and Labrador have criticized the fact that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board is in a position of conflict of interest. It passes legislation on oil development, but it is also meant to monitor the work to ensure that it is being done safely. That is why Commissioner Wells included recommendation 29, which proposes dividing that authority and creating an independent safety regulator.

I think many will understand this reality. An individual or organization that is developing a resource may have priorities that do not include the health and safety of workers. We have seen this many times: when it comes to workers' safety in the mining, forestry and fishing industries, it is not until workers join forces and create an independent body that their rights are respected by those who would take advantage of the situation and exploit them. This rather basic notion has been debated here in Canada since Confederation. Considerable gains were made in this area in the 1930s, and yet here we are almost 100 years later debating the basic issue of workplace health and safety.

I do not understand why we are still facing this shortcoming today, although it is perhaps the most important aspect that Bill C-5 fails to take into consideration. This organization will be dedicated to the health and safety of workers, especially those at sea and in the oil and gas industry, which is a fast-growing industry.

In my riding, we are on the brink of seeing oil and gas development in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We know there is a possible deposit between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, one that straddles the border of both provinces, so it is hard to know where the boundaries are. However, that is another debate. We know we have to face the reality of oil and gas development, so we have to debate it and be prepared for it.

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we at least have the luxury of taking the time to do things properly. We have before us the tools we need to make sure that the health and safety of our workers will be a priority. We also have the tools we need to make sure that the health and safety of our ecology are a priority. We can do it, but we also see the shortcomings.

The shortcomings of the bill are not just about recommendation 29 in the Wells report. We also know that, if there is ever a spill at sea, it will not just be the workers who are at risk; the environment will be at risk too.

In a report published in February this year, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development focused on the fact that we do not have the equipment we need if ever a spill occurs at sea. Not only do we not have the tools to guarantee the health and safety of the workers, but we also do not have the equipment to guarantee the health and safety of our environment. A great many improvements need to be made in oil and gas development in eastern Canada. Unfortunately, it seems that we are dragging our feet when the deficiencies are already known.

Today, we should have been able to debate a number of factors with a view to regulating, standardizing and improving the health and safety of workers. Unfortunately, we are doing it piecemeal, little by little. Do we think that, if we do this today, we can do the rest another time?

It makes sense to do it today. We have the opportunity to do it and we have the time to do it. The government always insists on gagging debate so that it can rush bills through quickly. It does no consultation, but collaboration is one of a government's most precious tools.

Bills are always improved if we take the time to speak to interested organizations. We do not do it enough and that is largely due to the fact that the government does not give us the time to do so. We are always rushing bills through. The government has broken all kinds of records for passing bills. The result is clear: the bills are poorly drafted and they often create more problems than they solve.

Amending the Employment Insurance Act so drastically has created an economic catastrophe that is felt every day in my riding, and that is largely due to a lack of consultation.

I am very pleased to see that in this case, the government took the time to consult the provinces so we can all be on the same page and so we can pass a bill that will work for everyone.

I would like our government to take a similar approach to all the other bills it introduces in the House of Commons. The bills would be better for it.

The Conservative government seems to think that Canadians are proud of this government. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case, especially in my riding. I can guarantee that there are few people in my riding who think that their views are reflected by the Conservative government.

The bill before us today is an improvement. The government seems to be listening more. I think this is encouraging and is a step in the right direction.

However, I want to point out that the government could have done better. We already have various independent organizations to protect health and safety in maritime regions. This is not uncharted territory. This topic is well known.

Many other countries already have this type of regulations. Take for example, Norway, the United Kingdom and Australia. Even the United States is thinking about creating an independent organization in the Gulf of Mexico area. The accident in the Gulf of Mexico was disastrous. That spill created an ecological problem that will last many years. The workers were in a considerable amount of danger when that accident happened.

Canada has the luxury of looking to the United States' example to determine whether we might be on the wrong track.

We can learn from bad experiences in other countries and also learn from good experiences in countries that passed social democratic bills.

These countries have adopted legislation that emphatically prioritize the health and safety of workers.

In eastern Canada, Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec, including my riding, workers take risks every day. They are proud of their work and proud to contribute to the Canadian economy. This benefits the entire country and allows us to share our wealth in a way that is truly unparalleled anywhere in the world. We have the privilege of living in a rich country, which is quite capable of taking care of all its people, without exception.

The fact that it took 14 years to put forward such a simple and fundamental improvement as the bill we are discussing today says much about the Conservatives, and also about the Liberals before them. They seem incapable of supporting a basic value such as respect for our workers. Our workers respect us and create the wealth that allows us to enjoy the free, democratic and rich society we live in. We owe them a great deal of respect. The bill before us today is a step forward. It is just one step, but it is important. I hope the government will go much further.

As far as the Wells commission is concerned, I would again like to stress its proposal for an independent regulator whose primary obligation would be the health and safety of workers. This would not just be an important element. In his own report, Wells said that the recommendation following this explanatory note would be the most important in the entire report.

This is not just one of many elements: this is the most important one. The Conservative government has forgotten it. Has it intentionally forgotten? I cannot answer that because I do not know. However, I know that for our side, human rights, health and worker safety are issues on which we do not accept compromises. This should have been included in the bill before us today, but that did not happen.

Our side is still pleased that the government has taken steps to foster co-operation between the provinces. We have the enabling legislation for the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, and we also have it for its counterpart in Nova Scotia. We also have similar legislation that will probably be enacted in Quebec. This involves the same issue, namely oil and gas development.

Harmonization is absolutely necessary. There is only one Gulf of St. Lawrence and we cannot have multiple rules and laws to manage a single resource. We will have the same situation in the Arctic. We cannot have multiple jurisdictions trying to manage, each in their own way, the natural resources that are so important to Canada's wealth and the preservation of its values.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence spans five provinces. Half of Canada's provinces are represented in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Promotion is not the only goal of co-operation. We must work together in order to ensure the sound and consistent use of resources leading to sustainable development.

Failure to do this led to the collapse of one resource: the fishery. Cod is still endangered and cod fishing has not returned to 1990 levels. Cod was overfished. We forgot that co-operation is invaluable.

We can see the beginnings of co-operation in this bill. I hope that the Conservative government will go even further and improve not just this bill but all their bills through better co-operation with the provinces and workers.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her speech.

She stressed how much leadership Nova Scotia has provided in this area and the degree to which the province has had to wait for the federal government before seeing any action.

As she mentioned yesterday, when we were debating Bill C-2, in Quebec, we have seen experts, groups and provincial institutions conducting studies and pilot projects like InSite. They are afraid that, because of the federal legislation on the table, their 10 years of research and effort will be completely sabotaged by Bill C-2. It is an interesting parallel.

In her speech, the hon. member spoke about recommendation 29, which is not addressed at all in Bill C-5. However, in his report, the Hon. Robert Wells wrote that, in his view, it was the most important recommendation.

Do we know why the Conservatives are tabling a bill today that does not address recommendation 29, which seemed to be so important? If we do not know, we have a serious problem, because it is something we ought to be able to understand.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am the hon. member for Halifax. In the riding of Halifax, we have a deep connection with the Atlantic Ocean. For some, it is just during the summer months for recreation and having some fun on the beach. For others, particularly those who work on the water, that connection to the Atlantic Ocean is year round.

Of course, we all know that the ocean provides many benefits for our communities. We also think of the ocean as being this beautiful thing. We stand and look off into the distance at the horizon and it is breathtaking. However, our relationship to the ocean at home is interesting. If one goes to any of the small fishing communities in Nova Scotia, one would see a house on a bluff overlooking the ocean, but if we look closely, we see that very often the side of the house that faces the ocean does not have a window. If it does, it just has a small window over the sink.

When tourists see this, they wonder why they do not have wraparound windows on that side of the house and a deck overlooking the ocean. Why are all these houses built without windows facing the ocean? I have had it explained to me a couple of ways, both of which are compelling and really touch one's heart.

Some people have said, “Why would you want a view of the factory you work at?” Spending 10 to 12 hours at work every day just to come home and look at the factory is not something one would want to do. Fair enough, it is where they work.

Other folks have explained it to me as, “Why would you have your home facing the source of so much anxiety and possible pain?” Their family members go out to fish in the morning and they wait to see if they will come back, wait to see if the weather will change. They just wait, and that constant reminder of having the windows facing the ocean can bring a lot of heartache sometimes.

This is not just in Nova Scotia. I am sure it is the same in New Brunswick and I know it is the same in Newfoundland. It is a difficult tension that we have with the ocean. My colleague for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour was talking about The Ocean Ranger and he encouraged members of the House to pick that book up. It was written by Susan Dodd and published by Fernwood Publishing, a Nova Scotian publisher. I agree with the member, people really should pick up this book; it is fantastic.

Susan Dodd wrote the book when her brother was killed in the Ocean Ranger disaster. The Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland, and it lost a crew of 84 men. It was called the worst sea disaster in Canada since the Second World War, but at the same time, people talked about it as if it was just a situation with a bad storm. It sort of faded into our memories. The media talked about it like extreme weather, and it was on the weather pages, frankly.

Susan Dodd worked to take that history out of the weather section. She compiled it and really pieced it together. She maps out the socio-political processes of the aftermath. She maps out where the money and power are, where the hopes for the future are, and really brings it to a fuller picture of lessons learned by a heroic industry advancing technology in the face of a pretty brutal environment.

I will read a review of the book because I think it bears on what we are talking about today. The review is from Eric Tucker, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University:

This is an extraordinary book. Much more than a personal narrative about the impact of an industrial disaster on a family, Dodd explores memory of industrial disasters as a complex and multi-layered project. Her reading of government reports, lawsuits and monetary settlements, songs and novels illuminate the different ways the past is commemorated and reconstructed and the implications for moving forward. Dodd’s discussion of personal injury litigation and the role of monetary compensation, or ‘blood money’, should be mandatory reading for all first-year law students.

I thought it was appropriate to read because it was the “mandatory reading for first-year law students”. We are not first-year law students here, but we are talking about law. That is what we are talking about right now. We are debating a bill that may or may not, depending on votes, become law. I suspect it will become law. It is important for us to have the bigger picture in mind when we are talking about law, and the bigger picture does include the overall health and safety of workers.

There actually are fishing villages in the riding of Halifax, which I represent. In one of these fishing villages, Sambro, every year we go out for a blessing of the fleet. It is quite magical. We go out onto the water and Reverend Keltie from St. James United Church comes and we have a wreath and flowers, and she blesses the fleet. She blesses the recreational boats, the fishing boats, the Coast Guard boats, and she blesses the people who will be working at sea, and we pay tribute to the lives lost at sea. That is the reality of our communities.

That harsh reality is something we want to avoid. We want to avoid certain incidents, like the incident in 1999. When I asked my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour a question, I talked about the Nordic Apollo when Shawn Hatcher died. We want to avoid that situation where, at the end of it, no one is apparently responsible. There were no charges laid. How does this happen? There is nothing for us to do because the Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board are not safety agencies. We have a terrible tragedy such as the Nordic Apollo and it was not only not prevented, but there were no consequences, no recrimination.

When looking at a bill like Bill C-5, we need to think about prevention and we also need to think about consequences. I do not think that health and safety hazards should be business as usual. We have to work proactively to formally legislate and enforce safety and health standards. That is why we are here, to legislate. That is what this place is all about.

That is why the NDP does support the bill as a step forward for tackling safety for offshore workers, but we need to continue to work beyond it. The bill is quite timely, since we are seeing a situation off the shores of Nova Scotia where there is new exploration by Shell and BP for the first time since the 2010 BP oil spill off the Gulf coast. These are important things to keep in mind as well. However, what we can do is ensure that greater efforts are made to recognize these kinds of dangers and to also prevent future injuries and deaths in the workplace.

What do I like about Bill C-5? I like the fact that it would fill in a gap in legislation that has existed for decades, since 1992 when amendments to the Atlantic accord first separated out health from safety issues. It would create a framework that spells out the individual and shared roles and responsibilities of the federal government, the provincial government, regulators, employers, operators, suppliers, and employees.

I also like the fact that it would provide employees with the right to refuse to perform an activity that they have reasonable cause to believe is unsafe. We need to rely on employees' judgment. If they are uncomfortable performing that task, they should have the right to refuse it. An employee, in reporting an unsafe condition, should be able to do so without fear of reprisal.

I also like the fact that Bill C-5 would provide these regulatory boards and the operator the authority to disclose relevant occupational health and safety information to the public. Finally, the bill would support a culture of occupational health and safety, and it would recognize shared responsibilities in the workplace.

These are some of the aspects that I do like, not just for their content or what they do but because they really represent a victory for the labour movement and for the NDP, if I can be so bold. Both the labour movement and the NDP have been advocating for a legislated offshore safety regime for years. Bravo, but—and we knew there had to be a but—though there are many aspects of Bill C-5 that are constructive and push forward workers' health and safety, I have to stress that this really is only the beginning. It is really just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot of room for improvement, and the NDP is committed to working with the provinces. If New Democrats were in government, we would open up that conversation with provinces to put forward measures that would further strengthen and improve the safety regime for offshore workers in Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Nova Scotia.

Speaking of Nova Scotia, I would like to give a big shout out to the former NDP Nova Scotia government that put a lot of work into this issue. It made the safety issues a priority. It worked to protect offshore workers equally with the work that onshore workers do. In fact, the labour movement in both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia work closely with their respective provincial governments. We should all be really proud of their achievements in collaboration with these governments to establish a protective regime for offshore workers in the oil and gas industry.

You probably know, Mr. Speaker, that this is mirror legislation that will be passing through the provinces as well. There was a situation in the spring where there was mirror legislation with Nova Scotia and the federal government around the Sable Island bill, creating Sable Island National Park. It can be a pretty hostile environment here. It can be pretty partisan here, but a bill like Bill C-5 or the Sable Island National Park bill are examples of what we can do when we work together, when the federal government works collaboratively with the provinces. Very often, provinces know what they need on the ground, but it is only the federal government that can enact the legislation. I will give credit where credit is due and say that the consultation process around Sable Island was exceptional. I really think that Parks Canada did a great job of making sure that Nova Scotians and the people in Halifax had their voices heard.

We have a situation where the federal government has been working with the provinces. The Nova Scotia NDP passed Bill C-5's mirror legislation in the legislature in May of this year. It has also said that the provincial legislation was a good start, but it went back to the Wells report. We have heard a lot today about the Wells report, specifically recommendation 29. I will quote Charlie Parker, who was the energy minister. He stated:

Industry and offshore employees need consistent regulations when it comes to health and safety on the job, especially since we're dealing with an industry that overlaps federal jurisdiction and two provinces.

That is a good point. This is why we have mirror legislation and this is why the provinces and the federal government need to work together.

Former energy minister Charlie Parker also said:

The proposed amendments will provide clear authority on issues of occupational health and safety, and better protect people involved in offshore oil and gas.

This legislation complements the work already underway to promote workplace safety in every industry across the province to ensure all workers, whether on land or sea, return home safe at the end of the day.

That is the point, is it not? It goes to show that this is an important improvement to the offshore occupational health and safety regime that the NDP has called for in all the relevant jurisdictions, not just at the federal level.

I want to talk about this idea of the stand-alone safety regulator, because I think that is the big piece that is missing in Bill C-5. We heard my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour talk about the Westray bill. He talked about the need for a dedicated prosecutor in situations like that. He talked about the Westray bill and the fact that while it was a huge victory that this bill passed, no one has been charged. We can sometimes create something, but unless it is actually going to be effective, it is all for naught. We need to create an independent stand-alone safety regulator but also to ensure that it is effective.

This is the big omission that really stands out for me in Bill C-5. When Justice Wells was making his recommendations on safety, he included that recommendation for an independent stand-alone safety regulator to be established. On this point, in the Wells report, he said:

...the Safety Regulator should be separate and independent from all other components of offshore regulation and should stand alone, with safety being its only regulatory task.... Independent and stand-alone safety regulators are now in place in Norway, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and the same concept is, I understand, being developed in the United States for the Gulf of Mexico.

That is the key thing, that it should be their only regulator task. This should not be the job of the C-NLOPB or the CNSOPB. It should be the job of an independent safety regulator.

Justice Wells included an important warning on why independence was a necessary condition for the regulator. He said that the problem was that without independence, we risked the development of a culture of regulatory capture. This is when relationships are fostered between the safety regulator and the organization, subject to the safety regulations, that ultimately lead to a bit of the bending of the rules, a bit of lack of compliance. We need to ensure we do not get into that regulatory capture culture.

I want to be clear that he did not actually find this culture existed already, but that we had to be vigilant against it when we were dealing with human health and safety.

Justice Wells also recommended some alternative options if it was not possible to establish a safety regulator. He recommended that the government create a separate autonomous safety division of the CNLOPB with a separate budget, separate leadership and an organizational structure designed to deal only with safety matters.

He recommended that the government establish an advisory board composed of mature and experienced persons fully representative of the community and who were unconnected with the oil industry.

Finally, he recommended that the government ensure that the safety division would have the mandate and ability to engage, either on staff or as consultants, expert advisers to assist it in its regulatory tasks.

Those are three very reasonable recommendations, that it be separate, that the people who are on it be experienced and not have links to the oil industry and that they have the ability to hire experts. It makes very good sense, yet in Bill C-5 we do not actually see any evidence of that.

The bill does not include even one of those alternatives. It is silent on this front, whether it is the independent safety regulator or one of the alternatives. It is not only puzzling, it is very concerning.

The NDP, although we support this legislation for the improvements it makes, is very concerned that Justice Wells has been ignored on this point and we will continue to push for that independent, stand-alone safety regulator.

I will move to the length of time that it took to take action on this. Obviously there are clear reasons why the bill was necessary, and it is only fair that offshore workers have sufficient health and safety standards. This is why the provinces took action themselves on this file. In fact, the NDP government in Nova Scotia, under Darrell Dexter, was a leader on this file, and he did great work. As members heard, we did pass mirror legislation this May.

The provinces needed the federal government to take action as well, because this is a joint initiative. The lack of federal action has actually rendered the provincial action pointless. It takes two to tango. The provinces were pulling up their end of the deal and the feds were nowhere to be found.

There has been a 14-year delay for federal action. I will be fair and say the Conservatives are only responsible for the last eight years, but the Liberals were of course responsible for the six years before that. We need the feds to actually work with provinces. As I said earlier, provinces know what we need on the ground, they know what our communities need and they have good ideas.

Sometimes it does fall to the federal jurisdiction to actually legislate, and I do not understand why we have seen such a delay. I rarely understand government priorities, so I do not know why I am particularly puzzled by that one.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to stand and speak for a few moments on Bill C-5, 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 is a piece of legislation that exists as a result of negotiations that have been going on for literally 12 years between the federal government, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia. It mirrors legislation that has already been passed in both of those provincial legislatures, so we will not be amending it here. If we were to do so, it would mean that they would have to go back to the drawing board.

Bill C-5 is an attempt to strengthen offshore health and safety practices in the oil and gas industry, which have been separated and left to regulation. That is a problem that I have certainly seen with other legislation. In my former jurisdiction of Nova Scotia, the government for 20 years did the same thing with the Trade Union Act, on the one hand, and with health and safety legislation on the other. What we found out, certainly in the case of health and safety legislation, was that it was not good enough to do it all by regulation. We had to make sure that the rules of the road, the principles, were properly articulated. The regulations would be there to make sure that those principles were carried forward.

It is good to see that the three governments involved here see that this is important to have done. Therefore, we will be supporting the bill at second reading.

The bill would put the practice into legislation based on three basic principles. Number one is that offshore occupational health and safety laws must provide workers with protection that is at least as good as what exists for onshore workers. This is a situation that has existed for far too many years and is finally being addressed here. Number two is the protection of employee rights; that is, to know, to participate, to refuse, and to be protected from reprisal will be covered in the bill. Number three is support for an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes the shared responsibility in the workplace.

We support this legislation. We think it is a step in the right direction for offshore safety, but more work still needs to be done. We hope that the federal government continues to work with the provinces to strengthen offshore safety regulations and that an independent stand-alone safety regulator is created for the future. That last point is something that came out of the Wells commission that recommended that a stand-alone regulator be put in place. It was something that was not agreed to by the parties and therefore does not exist. We think it is very important. I am going to speak a little more about that here this afternoon.

As usual, a bill like this comes to the floor of the legislature as a result of hard lessons, and in this case, lessons learned from years of offshore tragedies.

It has been more than 30 years since Canada's worse offshore disaster. In 1982, 84 people were killed when the drill rig Ocean Ranger sank off Newfoundland. A royal commission was subsequently convened in 1984, and that commission criticized the industry for poor safety training and equipment and lax inspections.

I want to take a moment to read a section from a book that was written by a good friend of mine, someone who lost her brother in that disaster back in 1982.

Susan Dodd wrote an exceptional piece of work called The Ocean Ranger, Remaking the Promise of Oil, which not only talks about that disaster, what led to it, what resulted from it, and the devastation it caused to the families involved but very much documents the problems that resulted as a consequence of legislators not paying attention. It was a result, frankly, of the power of the oil and gas sector to basically have its way and go about its business and of governments saying, “Thank you very much. We'll take some royalty revenue from you, but we'll try not to get in your way”.

I want to read, if I may, a passage from the book, which I think underlines why it is so important that we not only pay attention to the bill but that we also think about the role we play here as legislators to ensure that we do everything in our power to provide the laws, the regulations, the rules of the road, and the protections that would ensure that people living and working in this country and for this country are safe.

Let me quote:

The shock of the Ocean Ranger disaster was not that oil production was dangerous, but rather the realization that governments had betrayed people's faith. People trusted governments to use reasonable regulation to mitigate the risks of oil jobs. That trust was misplaced. There were no provincial safety regulations in the Newfoundland offshore when my brother and his eighty-three co-workers died.... Time and again, publics trust governments to ensure that companies operate with reasonable prudence. Time and again we are shocked by a new disaster caused by corporate negligence. We say we will “never forget.”

We do it all the time in this House.

Then we forget. And then it happens again.

The author goes on to talk about the fact that the most recent example is 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 workers and injured 17 more, resulting in the worst U.S. marine oil spill in history.

It is a fascinating book. I urge all members, or anyone interested, to take a look at it. Again, it is The Ocean Ranger, Remaking the Promise of Oil, and the author is Susan Dodd.

It is particularly important for those of us living on the coast, and in my case, living on the east coast. We know that Shell has invested over $1 billion to further explore an oil field off our coast. BP, in another area offshore, is further investing nearly $1 billion in exploring a similar development.

In other words, we cannot pretend that it is not coming again, that we are not going to be out there again. There are rigs out there off Newfoundland. We know that there are drilling rigs and exploratory rigs out there. There is equipment moving around our coast. We need to make sure that the people working in our offshore and the people servicing the offshore are provided with the necessary protections to ensure that these kinds of disasters do not happen again. It is important that we do that now.

I should say, of course, that a more recent review of offshore safety came in 2009, after the crash of Cougar Flight 91, which killed 17 people. The Wells inquiry into the Cougar crash made a number of recommendations, most notably the creation of an autonomous and dedicated safety regulator, which is not included.

My colleague, the member for St. John's East, raised a question in the House today about a recommendation that has gone before transport to ensure that airplanes and helicopters are able to operate an hour after they no longer have any oil or have run dry. It is an important safety measure that would have ensured that the disaster I referred to, Cougar Flight 91, did not happen. We continue to ask the government questions about why it is that it is unwilling to introduce that particular requirement for the offshore.

While I am disappointed, as others on this side have said, that this bill does not call for an independent safety regulator, I believe that it is a step in the right direction.

Again, it implements many of the principles of occupational health and safety. As I have said, offshore occupational health and safety laws must provide workers with protections that are at least as good as those that exist for onshore workers. The protection of employee rights to know, to participate, to refuse, and to be protected from reprisal needs to be included.

That is an issue that has been raised in this session of the House in relation to Bill C-4, the omnibus budget bill. In there are changes that lessen the responsibilities of health and safety inspectors. We are concerned about the implications those changes would have on Bill C-5. As I said, this bill talks about setting up a balance between health and safety protections onshore and offshore and about providing clear protection of the rights of employees to know, to participate, to refuse, and to be protected from reprisal. We are concerned that the omnibus budget bill, in fact, lessens those rights in federal jurisdictions and therefore may have some implications here. I understand that in a recent briefing on this bill, we were unable to get answers to those particular questions, but we will continue to ask.

Finally is support for an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes the shared responsibilities in the workplace.

As I have suggested to members, we will continue to see further exploration, further development of natural resources, off our coasts. We need to make sure that we provide the environmental protections necessary, if we are going to go forward, to ensure that no problems exist and that no problems are created that endanger our natural resources, coastlines, industries, fisheries, environment, marine life, or oceans. It is an issue that has come up on the east coast and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

We know that the issue of the development of the Old Harry site is a controversial one. It is controversial for reasons like this. We must make sure that we have protections in place for the people who work on any particular drill site and that the environmental protections are in place before any company is allowed to proceed with any development.

In the Gulf, as we have heard in this House, if there is an oil spill, God forbid, it takes upward of a year for the Gulf of St. Lawrence to empty and the water to cycle around. It would be absolutely devastating to Quebec, New Brunswick, the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and, of course, to the waters that flow into and out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is important that we pay attention to how we are moving forward and ensure that all of our laws are properly constructed to cover any potential problems that may exist.

This is a situation where laws are just now catching up with a disaster that happened 30 years ago, in which 84 people lost their lives. We have to be able to respond more quickly. We have to make sure we can look forward and learn from what is happening in other jurisdictions. Let us not wait until the worst case scenario actually presents itself, and let us bring legislation forward to prevent the kinds of disasters we have talked about, which happened in the past and are happening in other jurisdictions.

That is why we need to move forward and work closely with the provinces, in this case Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. On another offshore related issue, the Province of Nova Scotia has extended a moratorium against oil and natural gas development in Georges Bank. That area was determined to be extraordinarily vulnerable, a very sensitive ecosystem, very much a nursery for the fishery throughout the east coast. It has been determined in the past by both the federal and provincial governments working together that we needed to prevent any industrial development in that area of the ocean.

As well, the Province of Nova Scotia has passed legislation to make sure that will not happen, but the federal government, this time, has failed to work with the Province of Nova Scotia. We will continue to push the government on that question. The moratorium must be extended to protect the industry that now exists, the fishery, to protect the ecosystem, to protect our oceans and to protect our environment throughout the east coast.

Again, that is another part of the legislative framework that needs to be put in place to ensure that, as developments continue to move forward, we have the protections in place to ensure that damage is not done to what already exists and what might exist well into the future.

Both BP and Shell Oil are set to conduct new deepwater oil exploration off Nova Scotia for the first time since 2005. We believe that our workers deserve nothing less than to feel safe not only in their workplaces but, in the case of the offshore industry, in transit to the workplace as well.

I hope the government will continue to work with the provinces involved to make sure that offshore safety regulations are strengthened and that we can avoid offshore tragedies like Cougar flight 91, the BP spill in the Gulf, and the Ocean Ranger disaster.

It was a pleasure to participate in this debate. I look forward to any questions.

The House resumed from October 31 consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[BGen Charles Lamarre, Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff, Department of National Defence]

Thank you very much, sir.

Members of Parliament, I am pleased to be here today with Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Penny from the office of the judge advocate general. Lieutenant-Colonel Penny was a member of the Canadian delegation that negotiated this convention, and he has since assisted with its domestic implementation.

We are here to discuss the role of the Department of National Defence and of the Canadian armed forces in supporting Canada's efforts to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Mr. Chair, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are committed to the objective and purpose of the convention and to implementing all of its provisions. In this context, it is important to note that we have never used cluster munitions in any of our Canadian Armed Forces-led operations, and we are in the process of destroying our remaining stockpiles.

Bill C-6 was crafted carefully to reflect this commitment and to give effect to those obligations required by the convention within the domestic Canadian legislation. In short, it allows us to implement the convention, to meet our broader defence needs, to remain a strong and reliable ally, and to continue to contribute meaningfully on the international stage.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions itself strikes a necessary balance between humanitarian considerations and national security imperatives, and Bill C-6 reflects this balance. Bill C-6 was written in a clear and unambiguous way, which ensures that members of the Canadian armed forces understand the convention's obligations and its permitted exceptions.

In particular, direct use of cluster munitions during Canadian armed forces operations will be banned without exception. At the same time, as permitted by the convention itself, Bill C-6 protects and preserves the ability of Canada and the Canadian armed forces to continue to work with key allies that have not yet joined the convention. This continued cooperation with non-party states, also known as interoperability, helps enhance our national security by providing a wide range of collaborative opportunities such as exchange positions, intelligence-sharing, joint exercises, combined operations, and just as important, the placing of Canadians in command in key positions. This is particularly important in light of our valuable and unique relationship with the United States, our most important ally and defence partner.

In this context, it is vital that our men and women in uniform and the civilians working with them are not unjustly accused of criminal conduct when doing what we ask of them in the interests of our national security and defence. Bill C-6 thus affords them the legal protection they need to do their job, as permitted by the convention.

For example, under the convention and Bill C-6, these men and women can continue to ask for potentially life-saving military assistance from our allies, be they signatories to the convention or not, without fear of being disciplined or put on trial for the policy decisions of these other states. In situations where the Canadian armed forces have the exclusive choice of munitions to be used by the forces of a non-party state, we will prohibit our members from expressly requesting the use of cluster munitions. It is also worth underlining that nothing in the interoperability provisions of the convention, or within Bill C-6, detracts in any way from Canada’s existing obligations under international humanitarian law.

The Canadian armed forces and its personnel will at all times during all operations remain bound by obligations prohibiting the authorization of, assistance with, or participation in an indiscriminate attack, including one using cluster munitions, whether they are acting on their own or in concert with foreign partners.

In 2008, as evidence of Canada’s commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and upon our signature of it, the chief of the defence staff issued an interim directive prohibiting the use of these weapons in any Canadian armed forces operations. As we move forward, the chief of the defence staff will issue another directive, which will reflect all the requirements of Bill C-6, as ultimately adopted by Parliament. In addition, this new directive will also prohibit Canadian armed forces members on exchange with allied armed forces from directly using cluster munitions and from giving or receiving training in their use.

It will also prohibit the transportation of cluster munitions in Canadian armed forces vehicles or vessels. This goes above and beyond the convention’s requirements and it will take the form of military orders that carry the force of law within the Canadian armed forces. All these restrictions will be incorporated into the Canadian armed forces rules of engagement, and will typically be communicated to allies when Canada enters into military cooperation activities with them, as one method of informing our allies of our obligations under the convention. They will be implemented when the bill receives royal assent and will be legally binding for Canadian armed forces members under the military justice system.

That concludes my statement.

[Sabine Nolke, Director General, Non-Proliferation and Security Threat Reduction Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Thank you very much.

I am pleased to be here today to speak to you about Bill C-6, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, which is an important and necessary step toward Canada's ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Cluster munitions are a very serious humanitarian concern. Deployed from the air or ground, some types of cluster munitions can release dozens or even hundreds of smaller submunitions, which can rapidly cover a large area. These can pose serious threats to civilians, not only during attacks but especially afterwards if they fail to detonate as intended. Unexploded bomblets can kill and maim civilians long after conflicts have ended. Sadly, many of these victims are children, who pick them up mistaking them for toys.

Even when they do not kill, cluster munitions cause horrific injuries that seriously jeopardize the future of those affected and their families. Furthermore, access to land and essential infrastructure contaminated by unexploded bomblets is blocked. This stalls the development potential of whole communities trying to rebuild their lives after conflict and undermines efforts at long-term stabilization.

Canada has long been committed to protecting civilians against the indiscriminate effects of explosive remnants of war. Canada has never produced cluster munitions, nor used them in Canadian Armed Forces-led operations. However, this weapon has been used by other states in more than 35 conflicts around the world since the end of the Second World War. Over 25 countries and other territories are thought to be contaminated by these munitions. Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, for example, remain some of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world decades after the conflicts there have ended.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force in August 2010. To date, the convention has 83 state parties. This number will grow to 84 on March 1, 2014, when the convention enters into force for Saint Kitts and Nevis. An additional 29 states have signed the convention but have not yet ratified it. Most of our NATO allies have signed or ratified it, although some, including the United States, Turkey and Poland, have not.

The convention bans the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, and transfer of cluster munitions. It prohibits countries that agree to be bound by it from taking part in these activities and from assisting or encouraging anyone else to do so. It obliges them to criminalize these activities in domestic law.

Furthermore, it seeks to address past use by requiring clearance of contaminated areas, rehabilitation for victims of these munitions, and where possible, assisting affected countries in need.

The convention also permits military cooperation and operations between states that are party to the treaty and those that are not. This is the so-called interoperability clause. From the beginning of the negotiations, Canada strongly supported the need to ensure that state parties could continue to collaborate militarily with non-state parties. The interoperability clause was an essential compromise that allowed many countries, including Canada, to sign the convention. It ensures that Canada will be able to continue participating in multinational military operations with its key allies that are not party to the convention, particularly the United States, with which we enjoy a robust and vibrant military cooperation.

Drawing the line between prohibiting use by countries that are party to the convention while allowing legitimate and responsible cooperation with countries that are not was the most difficult issue in the negotiations, given the complex situations and scenarios in which military cooperation takes place.

Bill C-6 implements those parts of the convention that require legislation in Canada. Other provisions are carried out by other means and not necessarily through legislative mechanisms. The obligation to advocate in favour of the convention's norms, for example, will be implemented through diplomatic channels, while programming is in place to provide assistance to states affected by cluster munitions.

I'm turning now to those provisions that require legislative implementation and that are included in Bill C-6, which is before you today.

The convention requires a state party to give effect to the prohibitions it imposes on states by imposing certain criminal prohibitions on persons within its jurisdiction. Accordingly, the proposed act sets out a series of offences and the technical definitions needed to support their investigation and prosecution.

More specifically, the bill prohibits the use, development, manufacture, acquisition, possession, import, export, and cross-border movement of cluster munitions. It also prohibits aiding, abetting, counselling, and attempting or conspiring to commit such offences or such activity.

The proposed act also sets out some exceptions to these general prohibitions. Since the convention calls for the use of criminal law it is necessary to create these exceptions to ensure that members of the Canadian Forces and associated civilians who are engaged in the military activities that are specifically permitted by the convention, in particular those relating to the interoperability clause of the convention, will not be held criminally responsible for doing their jobs.

It is important to recall, as I mentioned earlier, that such exceptions are permitted by the convention itself. They do not authorize any specific activity at any particular time. They simply exclude Canadian Forces members and associated civilians who are engaged in military activities from the new criminal offences that Bill C-6 would create under specific circumstances. They have been strictly Iimited so that only persons who are acting on behalf of Canada are excluded, only when the activity in question is part of a permitted form of military cooperation, and only when the other country involved is not a state party to the convention. This is very important because it means that as other countries join the convention and renounce these munitions the legal exclusions become progressively narrower in effect.

I should also point out that these exceptions do not detract in any way from any other applicable legal obligations, including those established by the law of armed conflict. Under international law the indiscriminate or disproportionate use of any weapon is a war crime, whether or not the weapon is a cluster munition, and could be subject to prosecution in Canada under the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Nothing in Bill C-6 changes this.

Canadian armed forces members would remain prohibited from using cluster munitions in Canadian operations and from expressly requesting their use when the choice of munitions to be used is under their exclusive control. DND will impose additional prohibitions for its forces. My colleague from DND will speak to those in more detail.

Canada has already taken concrete measures to implement aspects of the convention. For example, the Canadian Armed Forces have initiated the process of destroying all of their cluster munitions. Their last remaining inventory has been removed from operational stocks and marked for destruction.

Canada is also assisting countries that are affected by cluster munitions. Since 2006, Canada has contributed more than $200 million to mine action projects, which address the impact of explosive remnants of war, including cluster munitions. Most recently, Canada has provided $1 million in funding to Laos for cluster munitions clearance activities.

Canada is firmly committed to the goals of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. This bill, if enacted, will solidify that commitment by enabling Canada to ratify the convention and become part of the growing number of nations intent on eliminating the use of these weapons.

Thank you. Merci.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will finish debating today’s motion from the New Democrats.

Tomorrow, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-2, the Respect for Communities Act.

After Remembrance Day and a week of work in our constituencies, we will return here with a continued focus on protecting Canadians.

On Monday, November 18, I expect we will continue debating Bill C-2. If MPs discuss that bill with their constituents, I expect they will endorse the bill, which gives communities input on decisions on drug injection facilities that could have a real impact on those communities.

Before question period on Tuesday, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-3, safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. Following question period, we will take up Bill C-5, offshore health and safety act at second reading.

On Wednesday, the House will start debating Bill C-11, priority hiring for injured veterans act, which the Minister of National Defence introduced this morning on behalf of the Minister of Veterans Affairs. This is a bill that both honours those who serve and advances employment opportunities for the disabled. It is a very fitting bill to be introduced this week, Veterans' Week, and I hope that all hon. members will join together in passing this bill quickly at second reading so it can be reviewed at committee and ultimately become the law of this land.

Finally, the hon. member for Papineau had a chance earlier this week to put forward a fresh new idea for governing Canada, any idea in fact, but he did not. However, do not worry, the Liberals are going to get another chance to give us an idea, some policy idea other than simply the legalization of marijuana, just one new idea. We might suggest an idea on continuing Canada's economic leadership. That will be on Thursday, November 21, which shall be the fourth allotted day set aside for a Liberal opposition day.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated hearing from the member for Vegreville—Wainwright about his concern for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. I say to him and anybody else in the House to never count out the Atlantic Canada provinces in terms of fulfilling our proper role in this federation.

I want to ask for the member's thoughts on something. New Democrats are particularly happy that Bill C-5 clarifies the rights of health and safety officers to protect work sites and enforce the rights of working people to work in safe and healthy workplaces. However, if we compare that with provisions in Bill C-4 that clearly strip health and safety officers of their powers in the Canada Labour Code and turn them over to the minister, there is a clear contradiction between, on the one hand, trying to clarify and enforce the rights of working people and, on the other hand, pushing them further up the chain to somebody whose interests are potentially contrary to those of people on the floor.

I want to ask the member if he would please try to clarify for me why his government is pushing forward this serious contradiction in terms of the rights of working people.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-5 today.

I would like to let members know that I will be splitting time with my hon. colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright, who was just re-elected as the chair of the natural resources committee yesterday in a hard-fought election, and I am sure he will continue on with his good work as part of the natural resources committee. I want to welcome all my new colleagues to the natural resources committee as well.

The genesis of Bill C-5 is a story from way back in the late 1990s about an accident. Due to a faulty door design, a worker was tragically killed in that accident. When we moved on—and there were court cases and other things going on—we realized that there was a gap in the oversight.

On one side, we had the operational aspects, which were looked after by the accord acts between Newfoundland and Labrador and the Government of Canada, as well as Nova Scotia and the Government of Canada. The other side of it, the occupational health and safety aspects of this, which covered the workers and the workplace, was typically governed by provincial legislation. So here we have a set of legislation to look after one piece of this and another side looking after the other piece when it was in the offshore. However, there was a gap as to just exactly which piece of legislation covered this particular incident where this worker was tragically killed.

With that in mind, I will fast forward a few years to where the provinces and the federal government started to actually discuss how to close that gap. The only way to do that, which was agreed to between the provinces and federal government, was to decide to put jurisdiction under the accord acts for the occupational health and safety when it came to the offshore. In that way the rules would be clarified, and this legislation is very much targeted to fix the ambiguity in that legislation.

We have a piece of legislation here that is 263 pages long, and it is very technical. To look further into the background of it, pages 26 to 118 and pages 147 to 239—almost 200 pages of the 260—are associated with moving the occupational health and safety legislation into the accord act to make sure it would be covered and that the ambiguity would be eliminated.

The provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador now have undertaken and passed legislation in their legislatures, and it has received royal assent. The provinces have done their part on this. Bill C-5 is our part to bring this up to speed.

As the speaker from Halifax noted, this has been a 10-year process between the provinces and the federal government. It began way back in the 2002-03 timeframe when this was meant to be negotiated.

As many of us have learned in the House, even some who have not been here very long, when it comes to negotiating these agreements between the provinces and the federal government, sometimes it takes a little while to do, especially when we think of moving a whole piece of occupational health and safety regulation, or any other piece of legislation, from provincial to federal jurisdiction, or possibly vice versa. Those were some very important things that had to be done as part of this legislation, as well as the negotiations, which had to take place over those 10 years.

We know that working offshore, workplace health and safety has to be paramount. We have to create a situation where it is safe for the workers.

I have never worked on or even been on an oil rig, but I know members of our caucus who have, and it is a challenge. There are many things we can control and many things we cannot. Out at sea on an oil rig, weather conditions and the remoteness of the workplace are just two of the challenges that come to mind.

To address these safety concerns as well as the equipment, on the east coast all offshore activity is regulated by one of two offshore boards. It is either the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board or the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. No oil and gas activity can occur unless the responsible board is satisfied that the planned activities are safe for the workers and for the environment.

Companies must clearly demonstrate that they have identified all health and safety hazards associated with exploration or production activities. They must also show these risks have been carefully evaluated and that they can be properly managed.

I have heard a few comments in the House earlier with respect to some of the powers. The chief safety officers would actually work under the offshore boards, but when we read through the bill we see that the powers they would have are tremendous. Having been involved in construction projects, working with safety officers in those environments, I have no question that if there is ever one person on a construction site who can shut it down for a reason, it is a safety officer. If there are safety concerns for any of the employees, they are paramount. Obviously, if we do not have employees, we will not get the work done.

When I was working on a construction project in my utility days, I knew safety officers who took great delight in some cases that they could actually shut projects down if they were not safe. That is very important for us to remember. Not only do they have those powers, but they are also able to investigate, to compel information from the producers and to get warrants to search places such as personal spaces that may be available on work sites. Those are all very important things that chief safety officers can do, and there is an appeal mechanism in place as well.

The proposed changes are going to address these long-standing gaps, but the accord acts are still the cornerstones. They have been in place for 20 years. They started out with revenue sharing and so on, but now they are responding to these issues based on that one accident.

We worked closely with the provinces on this, in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, to identify the gaps in the current legislation, and these amendments are top priority for the government and our provincial partners, as evidenced by the provinces already passing this legislation.

By modernizing these occupational health and safety provisions of the accord acts, we are working continuously to further strengthen Canada's robust offshore regime, and we must continue to work at that. It is a never-ending process. As technology changes, as new types of exploration happen, we have to make sure our safety and our environmental regulations keep up. That is the responsibility of the government, a responsibility we take seriously.

Furthermore, these changes would help protect offshore workers by investing within the accord acts a strong occupational health and safety regime. Most importantly, it would help us develop a modern new safety regime, one that is clear and that is uniquely tailored to the needs of Canada's offshore industry.

We are making good on our commitment. The provinces have made good on their commitment by already passing this legislation in May. I am really pleased to hear in earlier speeches in the House that members of the opposition will be supporting this going to committee. It is a very technical bill. As I mentioned before, it is more than 300 pages, and there are a lot of occupational health and safety aspects in it, very important things that are going to be good for workers, that will make it a safer environment for them to work in, including the transportation to and from the rigs. I am really pleased to hear that, and I look forward to receiving the bill at committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague and I found his speech very interesting. We are all concerned about workplace safety regulations in all regions of eastern Canada and across Canada.

The bill before us is a step in the right direction. I look forward to hearing the debates that will take place in the parliamentary committees that will examine it if it passes second reading. We hope it will.

I wonder if my colleague could come back to the issue of jurisdictions. The fact that the House of Commons and the National Assembly have not yet adopted an agreement between Quebec and the federal government regarding the Gulf of St. Lawrence is still a problem.

Does he foresee any difficulty in implementing Bill C-5, specifically because we have not yet reached the point where all of the provinces that share the gulf have agreements? I am talking about Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Quebec.

Yes, agreements exist with Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but three provinces that share the gulf and are entitled to have their own agreements do not have them. Could this create any difficulties regarding the bill currently before us?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, recently I was visited by some folks who are concerned about the potential of drilling in the St. Lawrence basin. It would seem to me that on the face of it, Bill C-5 would, in fact, have applicability to that potential drilling.

They raised two issues with me. The first issue was the multiplicity of jurisdictions surrounding the St. Lawrence basin. We can think of Quebec, New Brunswick, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Newfoundland, et cetera, and depending upon where the rig was located, which jurisdiction would apply.

Therefore, the first question is the applicability with respect to Bill C-5.

The second issue has to do with who cleans up when there is a mess made and who would have jurisdiction for that. It seems contradictory. If the federal government is taking jurisdiction over health and safety, why would it not also take jurisdiction with respect to pollution cleanup?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague suggested a longer period than I have in mind for their continuation, but I am prepared to leave that to the voters. I hope we all believe in democracy and are prepared to leave it to the voters to work that out for us so that we need not argue about that particular issue here at the moment.

The bill has survived changes in the ruling parties, at both the federal and provincial levels, and more than one change in my province of Nova Scotia. It has received clear provincial support this year, as I understand it. As I said earlier, the legislatures of both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have given Bill C-5's mirror legislation assent in short order.

By supporting Bill C-5 and sending it on to committee, we would 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 accords and Bill C-5 itself could provide the model for future negotiations between the federal government and other provinces looking to develop offshore oil and gas regulations.

As a group of legislators, we have the responsibility to protect our fellow Canadians as they contribute to developing our economy. We have the responsibility to draw the fine balance between the economic success of business and the concerns of those who raise legitimate issues, as both are so often important concerns. We have responsibility for planning for the future, anticipating issues, and solving them to the best of our ability.

Bill C-5 would take steps toward these goals. That is why I encourage my fellow members to support moving the bill to committee stage. We would have an opportunity to improve upon legislation that has been proposed and that has already garnered support. I look forward to the result.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on Bill C-5. One of the greatest privileges of being a member of this place is the opportunity to create and improve legislation that positively impacts the lives of our fellow Canadians. I believe, in fact, that Bill C-5 is a case in point.

It is not news to Canadians that our country places great economic importance on the development of natural resources. Throughout our history, that has been the case. Forestry products, natural gas, hydroelectricity and oil are cornerstones of our export market and contribute immensely to the creation of jobs for middle-class Canadians. Some of our natural resources are also extracted offshore. In Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador people know the importance this activity has for their economies.

The offshore sector is, of course, the subject of the bill, specifically the occupational health and safety of offshore workers. Mirror legislation has already received royal assent, in fact, in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia. While the bill is quite large, several hundred pages or more, some observers have noted that it primarily lays down in law things that are already happening in practice. Unfortunately, one issue that the bill does not address is recommendation 29 from the Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry led by Commissioner Robert Wells.

The Wells inquiry was established by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board following the 2009 helicopter crash about 30 nautical miles off of St. John's, Newfoundland. As members may recall, the helicopter was carrying 16 people to work in the offshore fields when it crashed, killing 15 of those workers and the two pilots. Commissioner Wells recommended that a new, independent, stand-alone safety regulator be established to regulate safety in the offshore. In fact, I asked the minister about that idea a little earlier.

The commissioner went on to say that if recommendation 29 was not feasible, a separate and autonomous safety division of the C-NLOPB should be created to deal only with safety matters. Unfortunately, Bill C-5 does not implement this recommendation in either of the ways the commissioner offered as options. I would urge the Conservative government to see if it can address this fact when the legislation is sent to committee, which I think it will be, and amendments are brought forward. If that cannot be done, perhaps it could bring forward legislation soon, working with the provinces involved, obviously, to deal with this.

As Canadians, we are well aware, of course, of the oil sands. Its production, export and environmental impact colours the discourse of the government every day. It is often talked about here in the House, and these days in the U.S. as well. Lesser known but still valuable is our domestic offshore oil and gas industry operating in the coastal waters of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, even though in Nova Scotia there has been a decline in revenues from the offshore in recent years as the production of gas from existing wells declines and with the relatively low price of gas in North America. In fact, in North America the gas level price is about $3 whereas in Asia it is between $14 and $18, so there is quite a variation. That means that there is a little less interest these days in more costly exploration offshore versus production onshore, as is happening a great deal in the U.S.

The offshore industry in Newfoundland and Labrador produced more than 28 million barrels of oil in 2013. In Nova Scotia, offshore production accounts for a significant portion of the province's annual revenue, although it has been declining. The offshore oil and gas industry provides employment for Canadians and security for their families, for thousands of people. My hon. colleague from South Shore—St. Margaret's, for instance, would know this having worked in the offshore. He would also understand that the primary concern of the industry is its own economic viability and success. Meanwhile, as legislators, it is our responsibility to strike a careful balance between the economic success of Canadian business and the rights of employees, and of course consideration for our environment. There are and must be times when these latter two take precedence.

Bill C-5 is one of the many tools to achieve this. Canada is often referred to as a nation rich in natural resources. We must ask ourselves how we should behave when we are labelled in this way, especially these days when there is so much concern about the impact on the environment of the exploitation of natural resources and when we need to have the social licence, whether it be within our country or beyond our borders in the case of the Keystone XL pipeline that has been proposed for example, when we need to have support elsewhere for what we are doing and a recognition that we are making important efforts and doing everything we can to ensure the environment is protected. I do not think most Canadians believe for a moment that the Conservative government has been doing that.

It seems to me that we should also be striving to set an example for other countries by valuing our human capital as much as we value the wealth we derive from our natural resources. The bill is very much about our human capital as we are thinking about the safety and health of our workers.

The bill will in fact effectively solve the issue of jurisdiction surrounding the occupational and operational health and safety in the Canadian offshore oil and gas industry. That is an important thing to do. It is frustrating that it has taken over 10 years to do that. This process has been under way and we have been discussing it a long time.

Nevertheless, for this reason, because it is achieving this, the Liberal Party supports Bill C-5. We believe we need to move the legislation to committee so that it can be studied, and if necessary improved. We certainly look forward to the opportunity to examine the bill, to hear from experts and to consider possible improvements.

The original offshore accords were signed in the late 1980s by Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia. They were designed to establish guidelines for revenue and responsibility sharing of offshore oil and gas assets. These assets have since proved to be economically rewarding, especially so in Newfoundland and Labrador, and have supported programs beyond the scope of resource extraction.

Bill C-5 seeks to clarify jurisdictional issues that arise between occupational health and safety and operational safety, to create a streamlined process for rectifying health and safety issues and to assign responsibility. We do not want to have any doubt, when there is an accident in the offshore, about whether it is a matter of federal or provincial jurisdiction. We want to know that there will be clear laws, that the courts will know which laws apply, and that nothing falls through the cracks. We want to know that people are protected and that in the worst case scenario, God forbid there is another accident like the helicopter accident, families seeking redress know where to go, what to look for and what laws apply to them. That is obviously important.

The right to a safe workplace is one that all Canadians must enjoy. It is fundamental for all of us. Those of us who work in this place are very fortunate. We have a very safe environment, at least in terms of actual health and safety. I did not say it was secure, especially when elections come along. Nobody here has job security for more than four years or so.

However, we are very fortunate in the kind of work we do in this job. Generally speaking it is pretty good for health and safety. We do not have to engage in the kinds of work that some people in our country do have to engage in. We can think of that television show Dirty Jobs. There are many jobs in this world that are dangerous and challenging.

This morning as I left my apartment and walked here, the first thing I saw was a new building under construction across the street. I was thinking about the construction workers and the kinds of things they have to learn to work on a site such as that. There are health and safety things they have to learn to know how to operate in an environment where it can be somewhat dangerous. If they back up the wrong way or take the wrong step, they could be in a big trouble on a construction site with a building that is already 10 storeys high, and as I learned this morning, is going to be 22 storeys. That is the kind of place where people want to be careful.

The right to a safe workplace is something the government should keep in mind as it proceeds also with Bill C-4, the omnibus budget bill.

Though a safe workplace is not the reality for all, through the years, governments and parliamentarians have worked with stakeholder groups to improve the 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 they are the efforts of the provincial and federal levels working together, which is nice to see. 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.

Conditions for employees on offshore drilling projects should be comparable to those found on land-based projects. There is no question that a drilling rig, whether offshore or onshore, can be a very dangerous environment. My brother at one time worked on offshore oil rigs, and I have certainly heard stories from him about the nature of them and what he had to learn before he could work there, especially if the work was around the equipment that was the most dangerous.

The mode of transportation to their work site should be safe and reliable. Think about the helicopter accident. Employees of the oil and gas sector offshore and their families should be able to leave for work with confidence that they will be returning safely home. They should be able to voice their concerns about unsafe working conditions when they find them without fear of reprisal or the frustration of drawn out and murky processes. It is important that the processes be clear and expedient.

It is our job to transform these topics of concern I have just listed into topics of confidence. 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 offshore oil and gas projects. It is up to us to decide by how much.

Members of our party believe that we need to ensure the separation of health and safety concerns from those of production and economic viability. They are two different things. We want to make sure that sometimes, 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 would be insufficient. I have already said that we do not think that the chief safety officer approach is necessarily ideal. There are others 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, obviously. This individual must be a champion of a healthy and safe environment for all employees who work on offshore oil and gas projects.

The Liberal Party places great emphasis also on search and rescue capabilities, or SAR, as it is called. This is a core element of the health and safety regime in the offshore industry.

The spring 2013 report of the Auditor General outlined significant issues regarding search and rescue capabilities, including a complete lack of federal policy in this area. The Attorney General is rightly concerned about the viability of search and rescue capabilities in the coming years and about the risk of leaving employees in the offshore sector with inadequate assistance in the case of major emergencies.

Bill C-5 includes guidelines on the safe transport of workers to and from the offshore site. It should also include a procedure for rescuing these individuals should something go wrong. This should be included in this legislation, it seems to me.

The unique challenges of the offshore oil and gas industry must be met by a complete and thorough plan of response. Bill C-5, as I said earlier, is the product of over a decade of negotiations and consultations among the federal government, the provincial governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, and stakeholder groups. A decade is a long time. Really, it is excessive. I would hope that future negotiations would move more quickly. If the Conservatives, at least while they are the government, will take this seriously and move quickly, along with provinces—

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is the custom in the response to this question to actually answer about the business of the House. That is what I will focus on, rather than the business of our party convention, which I am sure will be a very successful conference. Good things always happen when we get together as a party.

We will conclude this week with the debate on second reading of Bill C-5, the offshore health and safety act.

Next week we will focus on families and building our communities. Families are the cornerstone of society. Over the coming weeks and months, our government will continue to support and protect families through a number of important bills.

We will continue to tackle crime, increase support for victims, and ensure communities are kept safe from criminals. We want Canadians to live in safe and healthy communities in which they can raise their children.

Therefore, on Monday, before question period, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-2, the respect for communities act. That debate will be continued next Friday.

After question period Monday, we will take up the second reading debate on Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

Wednesday will see us return to the third reading debate on Bill C-7, the Canadian museum of history act.

Thursday, November 5 shall be the second allotted day, which will go to the Liberals, I understand. This will be an opportunity for the hon. member for Papineau to tell us, and all Canadians, the next plank of his policy vision for Canada. So far, we have seen his penchant for pot, as well as his star economic adviser claiming that someone's job prospects are pre-determined by his father's job. However, we have not heard any economic ideas as yet.

Thursday, November 7, shall be the third allotted day, which will see a New Democratic motion considered.

In closing, let me echo the words of the hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East, which I know he scripted himself: happy Halloween.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to the impression left by the Minister of Natural Resources, the bill before us, Bill C-5, deals entirely with offshore health and safety affecting the workers, transportation of workers, and their right to refuse unsafe work. The member for St. John's East has knowledge and a deep background on the very slow pace of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board in taking worker safety seriously, and that is a real concern for me as well.

I would like to underline that although the Minister of Natural Resources talked about how this bill would make environmental progress, there is none of that in the bill. I would like to know if my hon. colleague would agree with me that it falls far short of the independent safety board that we really need, because in practice, these offshore petroleum boards are not unbiased; in practice, they operate to promote offshore oil and gas.

Would my hon. colleague agree with me that the legislation before us is indeed better than nothing, but falls far short of what we would all like to see, based on the recommendations of Mr. Wells?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to this legislation, Bill C-5, at second reading. This is an extremely important piece of legislation as it affects the offshore of Newfoundland and Labrador and the workers who risk their lives in a dangerous occupation, travelling back and forth to oil rigs, working on exploration vessels and working offshore for as much as three weeks at a time in an industry that is constantly changing.

At the beginning of offshore exploration, exploration was going on in shallow waters near to shore. Now there are oil rigs and exploration hundreds of kilometres offshore. Transportation is by helicopter, which takes as much as two or three hours to get back and forth. That is clearly a dangerous situation, as we know. Not only are risks being assumed by individuals in pursuit of a livelihood for themselves and their families; but it is also extremely important economic activity for the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, as well as for the taxpayers and the Government of Canada in terms of sharing in the revenue from the offshore oil industry in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

Unfortunately, for many years, going back as early as 1992, the offshore safety regime was not controlled by the provinces themselves for workers in Newfoundland and Labrador or in Nova Scotia. The labour portfolios had responsibility for occupational health and safety. That was taken away in 1992 by legislation and given over to the offshore petroleum boards. In their supposed wisdom of the day, they had draft regulations. It was not a situation in which somebody who did something contrary to those draft regulations could actually be charged, treated as an offender, taken before a court, fined or dealt with appropriately and be required to follow the regulations. No, it was a very different regime. The regime was that there were draft regulations, and those draft regulations were really just a framework or guideline. That was entirely unsatisfactory to the workers, and my party in both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador were very strongly opposed to this particular approach.

I will quote from former Justice Wells, of the Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry, who talked about this issue. The minister claims that this has nothing to do with the Cougar crash and inquiry, that this is something that has been going on for a long time, but it is very important to know that Mr. Justice Wells did a very extensive study of the offshore health and safety regime. He led an inquiry into the Cougar helicopter crash that happened in March of 2009, in which 18 people were on board a helicopter that crashed; 17 were killed and there was 1 sole survivor. It led to an inquiry being undertaken by former Justice Wells into these fatalities. He talked about his work, learning about how health and safety deficiencies are attended to in the offshore oil industry. On page 275 of his report, he stated he learned the differences between prescriptive regulation and performance-based regulation.

What we have in this particular situation, until now, is what are called performance-based regulations. In other words, the regulator comes up with a plan and objectives for safety, and the companies decide how they shall go about meeting those objectives; whereas the regulatory regime in this legislation says what must be done, the standard that must be met, and the requirement is to comply. New Democrats have been calling for this power for years. When anyone objected to the regime that only had guidelines, the answer always given was, “We have the ultimate power, and that is to shut down the operation if it is deemed to be unsafe”.

That, of course, never happened. With the cost of doing that, the way of getting compliance was not satisfactory. We then get into a situation where the same agent, the same organization, the same agency that is responsible for the management and control of the operation, control of the whole of the exploration and production activity, methods, schedules and all of that, is also dealing with health and safety.

That has been deemed by many countries and by the Wells commission of inquiry to be unsatisfactory. He says in his report—and recommendation no. 29 has already been mentioned by one of my colleagues—that there should be a new independent stand-alone safety regulator:

Such a Safety Regulator would have to be established, mandated, and funded by both Governments by way of legislative amendment, regulation, or memorandum of understanding, or other means.

In the lead-up to that he said:

I believe that the recommendation which follows this explanatory note will be the most important in this entire report. Until the end of 2009, the C-NL offshore operated under a primarily prescriptive regime which established the requirements under which the oil operators filed their Safety Plans, received authorizations, and conducted their exploration and production. The essential task of the Regulator was to ensure that the oil operators adhered to what was required of them. This was called the prescriptive system of regulation.

They then changed that entirely. The regulations changed into the performance goal-based regime whereby the regulations specify, and the regulator sets the goals and the operators respond by saying how they will achieve them.

He was not satisfied with that. He said that the new offshore goal regulator regime was introduced by regulation in January 2010. There were no changes made at the time to the regulatory body to strengthen and prepare it for the new and much more demanding regime. He says that there ought to be a separate, powerful, independent, knowledgeable body equipped with expert advice, and he made the recommendation I just quoted.

That is the one flaw in this regime. We support this legislation because it brings us from a situation of operating with draft regulations to a situation where we now have regulations in force. We have authority by legislation. This has been worked on for a number of years by negotiators on behalf of the workers in both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The former NDP Government of Nova Scotia and the PC Government of Newfoundland and Labrador worked on these for a number of years.

The labour representatives support this approach. They support the fact that this regulation is there. They worked very hard to achieve a situation where they believe that the offshore workers have the same level of protection as the onshore workers. That is an important principle that is included in this bill. As a result of the work of the labour representatives in these negotiations, they believe this has been achieved.

The second principle is the protection of employees' rights to know and to participate, to refuse unsafe work and to be protected from reprisal. That is there, as well as support for an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes the shared responsibilities in the workplace between employees and employers for a safety regime.

That is why we support it. We think it is a good step forward to ensure that the safety regime is covered by enforceable legislation, and we think that is going to be a better system to protect workers and to protect workers who refuse unsafe work.

Where we have the problem is in the fact that it is included in the same regulatory body as all other aspects of offshore development, whether they be plans for production or exploration, design of facilities and all of that. There is no separate regulator.

Why should we have one? Looking at other countries, we see that in 2001, for example, Norway adopted the concept of having a separate safety regulator. A few years later, Australia did the same thing. Their rationale for imposing separate safety regulators was that there may be inherent conflicts within a single regulator that, on the one hand, regulates exploration and production and at the same time is required to make the hard decisions that a safety regulator must make.

We also had the same situation in the United Kingdom, where it was also believed that this was required. These changes were made and they came from government, not from industry. The changes have been fully accepted by industry, however, and they are deemed to be working, according to Justice Wells in his report, and he said that it was “...independent minds outside the industry which perceived the inherent conflict between exploration and production on the one hand and safety on the other...”.

A second problem that goes against the notion of continuing with a single regulator is something called “regulatory capture”, which is well known in the industry and other types of industrial regulation. I am reading here from the report at page 277:

...regulators and those they regulate work so closely together that friendships and close working relationships can develop. Common interests and what are sometimes referred to as cozy relationships may unconsciously influence the hard decisions that safety regulation requires.

The report did not state, nor did Justice Wells say, that he found that type of regulatory capture in existence. The offshore industry is relatively new and small, and he did not expect regulatory capture to occur. “Nevertheless”, he said, “every effort should be made to ensure that it never happens”.

These are two of the reasons why this should be a separate regulatory body. As Justice Wells said, the recommendation was one of the most important ones he made. It was adopted by the Newfoundland and Labrador government; it supported that recommendation. The workers themselves support that recommendation. The Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour supports that recommendation 29. We supported it in Newfoundland and Labrador and we support it here, that there should be a separate regulatory body.

The minister says we do not need to have a proliferation of agencies and organizations. We are not talking about a proliferation here; we are talking about a separate health and safety regime in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore industry where it is extremely important to have that concern.

We have a situation now, and it is relevant to the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore and also to the situation involving helicopter transport back and forth to the rigs. That has to do with the resumption of night flights. During the course of Mr. Justice Wells' inquiry, he made an interim recommendation that all night flights of helicopters back and forth to the rigs be stopped. That has been in place since around February 2010, when he made that recommendation. It was implemented by the C-NLOPB, and night flights have not been a part of the regime of the offshore, much to the relief of the workers because part of the evidence heard during Mr. Justice Wells' inquiry was that the survivability from a crash at night in a helicopter was significantly lowered because it happened at night.

The situation is that this helicopter crashed because it had a loss of main gearbox lubricant. The pilots thought, and were told, that the helicopter had the capability of flying for 30 minutes in what is called a “run dry“ state, with no gearbox lubricant. That is a standard for all class A helicopters in use in the world. Unbeknownst to the pilots, there was an exemption given to Sikorsky, and the helicopter did not have that capability, so 10 minutes after the helicopter lost main gearbox oil it crashed, killing 17 of the 18 people on board.

In its February 2011 report, the Transportation Safety Board recommended that all class A helicopters be required to have that 30-minute run-dry capability and asked Transport Canada to enforce that ruling. Transport Canada did not accept that recommendation, nor did it place any restrictions or limitations on these helicopters being used to transport people hundreds of kilometres over the ocean. It left that in place, following what the American FAA did in saying that it would not require Sikorsky to retrofit its helicopter fleet.

That created a regime of concern by offshore workers. They made protestations about it. They made representations to the C-NLOPB. A moratorium on night flights was maintained up until now. However, now the operators, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, are going back to the C-NLOPB seeking to resume night flights. We are back to the situation in which the regulator, which is in charge of all aspects of offshore production safety and regulations, looking at this very question of offshore health and safety.

I believe there would be more confidence among the workers and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia if they knew that a decision that was going to be made would be made by a separate, independent health and safety regulator whose only mandate and only concern was the safety of workers. The independent regulator would be making that decision and would take into consideration what the options are. One of the options would be to have more helicopters instead of having night flights.

The issue is how many people can be transported and in what period of time. The reason they want night flights and want to fly in the dark is they do not have enough helicopters to do the transportation in the daytime. The simple solution is to have more helicopters. There is a cost involved, yes, but if safety requires it, then I would expect that an independent health and safety regulator, with no concerns other than health and safety, would be in a better position to make the decision that night flights would not be permitted in the offshore, even if it was a tough decision.

That is one concrete example of the concern that was raised about this issue and the need for an independent regulator. Recommendation 29 of Mr. Justice Wells' report on the offshore helicopter safety inquiry states it very eloquently, with a lot of background information. A lot of work was done, with a lot of consultations and visits to other countries. Whether from the U.K., Norway, or Australia, experts and expertise were brought forward. Retired Justice Wells did a most thorough report and made that recommendation.

It is a pity that it was not adopted by the Government of Canada. The government failed to do that despite the urging of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Justice Wells, the unions involved, the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, and many others who are concerned about the offshore health and safety regime.

That said, we do regard this bill as a step forward. Bill C-5 would put into regulation and legislation what was treated as draft regulations for nearly 20 years. It is an unsatisfactory situation that would be resolved. For that reason, we are supporting the legislation at second reading.

I see that my time is nearly up, but I would be happy to answer any questions or respond to any comments my colleagues would have with respect to the bill. As I say, we support it, but we are concerned that there is a lack of an independent regulator to enforce these regulations.

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources]

moved that Bill C-5, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I want to congratulate the Prime Minister and the Minister of International Trade for the agreement in principle on the Canada-Europe trade agreement, the largest free trade agreement Canada has completed. This is a great achievement and demonstrates that our economic action plan is working.

We are here today to talk about the new legislative provisions to amend the Atlantic accord implementation acts, in order to extend occupational health and safety jurisdictions to Canada's offshore areas.

Before we talk more about these legislative provisions, I would like to set the stage by emphasizing how vital the offshore resources industry is to Atlantic Canada and to our country's economy.

There is no question that the offshore oil and gas industries have made an enormous economic contribution to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that these industries have transformed the economy of eastern Canada.

Not long ago, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador was receiving the highest per capita equalization payments in the country. Today it is among our strongest provincial economies and now contributes to the equalization program.

Newfoundland and Labrador's GDP has performed at or above the national average in nine of the past 13 years. A large part of that success comes from offshore oil and gas, which accounted for 33% of Newfoundland and Labrador's GDP in 2011. Resource revenues, again primarily from the offshore, have allowed the province to steadily pay down its debt. The total provincial debt was about $7.7 billion in 2012, down from a high of $12 billion just eight years ago.

Simply put, offshore energy development has given Newfoundland and Labrador more jobs, lower taxes, and new investments in services and infrastructure that play an important role in building stronger communities. These benefits will continue to grow.

Hibernia was the largest project of any kind ever undertaken in Newfoundland and Labrador. As valuable as Hibernia has been, the Hebron project may be even bigger. Hebron represents a capital investment of as much as $14 billion. It could deliver $20 billion in taxes and royalties for the province over the 30-year life of the project.

Just a few months ago, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board announced its latest call for bids for exploration licences for the offshore of Newfoundland and Labrador, netting $117 million in work commitments by major players in the oil industry.

Nova Scotia's offshore area also offers enormous potential. The Play Fairway analysis, undertaken by the government of Nova Scotia, estimates that the offshore area may contain eight billion barrels of oil and 3.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The Atlantic offshore is a major gas producer, with three gas fields serving Atlantic Canada and the U.S. northeast.

In the past two years, the Nova Scotia offshore area has seen the largest bids ever for offshore parcels in Atlantic Canada, with more than a total of $2 billion bid for 12 parcels of land. Shell Canada and BP clearly see the potential that exists in the Nova Scotia offshore.

Meanwhile, there is an estimated 120 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and production continues to grow. Sable Island's 270 million cubic feet a day will soon be joined by 200 million cubic feet a day from Deep Panuke.

It is essential that Canada continue to ensure that our offshore industries carry out their activities safely and in compliance with the most stringent environmental standards. Canadians expect to see a world-class regulatory body, and our government is taking the measures necessary to ensure Canadians' continued satisfaction in that regard.

That is why we are bringing in new legislation to clarify provincial and federal responsibilities when it comes to offshore occupational health and safety.

The accord's implementation acts are the cornerstone of all offshore oil and gas activities. They give the boards the legal authority to regulate oil and gas activities on behalf of the provinces. Every day, Canada's offshore workers have to deal with a difficult work environment.

The harsh weather conditions in Atlantic Canada and the remoteness of their workplace are just two difficulties that come to mind. The safety of the courageous men and women who work in this environment must always be our main concern.

The changes we intend to make need to be mirrored by provincial legislation in order for the amendments to come into force. Our Conservative government has been working closely with the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to achieve this. Both provinces introduced their legislation in May, and both have given royal assent to their respective bills. This time, they must wait for the legislation to pass our federal Parliament for the new regime to come to fruition.

The proposed amendments would address gaps in the current legislation. They would invest authority for offshore occupational health and safety in the accord acts.

There are two safety regimes that apply to workers offshore. Occupational health and safety pertains to the workers in the sense of the hazards they may face, their protective equipment, and safeguards on the equipment they use in their functions. It also pertains to three essential worker rights: the right to refuse dangerous work, the right to information, and the right to participate in making decisions on workplace health and safety. Under the current regime, occupational health and safety is the jurisdiction of the provinces.

Operational safety pertains to workplace systems, facilities, and equipment as well as the risk management and integrity of those systems, facilities, and equipment. Examples are the prevention of gas blowouts, the ability of a facility to withstand storms, and a facility's fire suppression systems. Operational safety was included in the accord acts and provided that the offshore petroleum boards be responsible on behalf of both levels of government.

Following a tragic accident, when a worker was killed due to an improperly installed door, the overlap of occupational health and safety and operational safety created a grey area. It was not clear whether the door's installation fell under operational safety or occupational safety. The lack of clarity prevented any party from being liable. It was unclear under whose jurisdiction the incident should be regulated. The provinces and the federal government agreed that the best course of action was to eliminate the grey area and to incorporate the power to regulate occupational health and safety directly in the accord acts.

For the section on occupational health and safety, which would typically fall under the purview of the Minister of Labour, the legislation specifies that the Minister of Natural Resources may receive advice from the Minister of Labour and that any regulations related to occupational health and safety must be made on the recommendation of both ministers.

In addition to fixing this historic issue, the legislation would establish a hierarchy of responsibility. It would make operations operators ultimately responsible for all activities related to their authorization. It would also spell out the specific duties expected of operators, employers, supervisors, employees, contractors, and interest holders.

The nature of the offshore is that work sites are usually hundreds of kilometres from shore. We would be ensuring that the health and safety regime also applied to workers in transit to the offshore. These workers could refuse to be transported if there were safety concerns.

The legislation would also include powers to establish regulations related to additional safety equipment for workers in transit. Offshore board inspectors would also have the power to conduct compliance audits on the vessels used to transport workers. These measures would significantly enhance workers' safety in the offshore.

This legislation would also give new powers to offshore board officers to further enhance safety. For example, they would have the power to inspect anything, take samples, meet in private with any individual, and inspect living quarters.

Due to the distance and isolation offshore activities regularly require, offshore board officers would have the power to act in exigent circumstances. That is, they could act without a warrant to preserve evidence or to prevent non-compliance. The requisite warrant would have to be sought from and granted by a judge or a justice of the peace post activity.

The legislation would also clarify certain issues regarding the chief safety officer. The position of this officer could not be held by the CEO. This would ensure that safety was an independent function within the senior management of each offshore board. The chief safety officer would have to review and provide written recommendations related to safety on all authorizations. This would formalize the process that both boards are already following.

Chief safety officers would also be granted the power to allow regulatory substitutions, which would be made on application by an operator who would have to satisfy the SFO that the substitution provided an equivalent or greater level of safety. The SFO also could require that the operator or employer establish a special occupational health and safety committee. The committee would be in addition to the workplace health and safety committee that all workplaces with more than five employees must establish.

We would also introduce a new appeal process for the most serious cases. In certain special cases, the provincial minister would be able to appoint a special officer. The legislation is very clear that this could only be done where there were reasonable grounds to believe that such an appointment was warranted to avoid a serious risk to health and safety and that the risk could not be avoided by the use of other means available through the accord acts. Both the federal and provincial ministers would have to agree that the required conditions had been fulfilled. The orders of a special officer would supersede those of all other officers, including the chief safety officer.

These amendments would create a more transparent regime for Canada's offshore industry. The health and safety of Canadians and protecting the environment are among the Government of Canada's top priorities. That is why Canada's offshore installations and the equipment and training required to operate them must meet strict regulatory standards that are among the highest in the world. Nevertheless, we recognize that our offshore regime can be improved, and today we are taking steps to do just that.

Our government recognizes that accidents can happen anywhere, regardless of laws and safety measures. We are also very confident in our safeguards. We have very strong environmental laws and standards and a robust, well-developed safety regime for offshore exploration and drilling.

On our east coast, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board are responsible for evaluating every project for compliance with federal regulations. Drilling cannot occur unless the responsible board is satisfied that drilling plans are safe for workers and safe for the environment.

Beyond high standards for training, safety, and equipment, oil and gas companies are required to maintain environmental protection and spill response plans. The government is committed to the polluter-pays principle and the responsible management of risks. The responsibility rests with operators to immediately take all reasonable measures to clean up a spill and prevent further spillage. Of course, the government needs to be prepared to step in to help if need be.

As the regulators, the National Energy Board or offshore boards would be the government's lead agencies for the response. Using aerial surveillance and satellite imagery for detection and tracking, they could provide advice about a spill with trajectory modelling, weather and sea-state forecasts and warnings, the location of wildlife and sensitive ecosystems, and cleanup and remediation options.

I am certain that once these legislative provisions are in place, the offshore boards will do their job and determine what is safe for workers and the environment.

I would like to speak very briefly about the creation of a separate regulatory body for offshore safety.

First, I would like to make it clear that these legislative provisions are not related to this issue.

Work on these provisions started well before this recommendation was made for the first time. These legislative provisions were the result of the accident off the coast of Nova Scotia, which I mentioned earlier.

With respect to the actual recommendation, we continue to work with the provinces on this very important issue. We expressed concerns about the fragmentation of our offshore regime and the proliferation of regulatory bodies. We want to ensure that the system is as simple as possible and protects Canadians' health and safety. We will continue to discuss these issues with our provincial counterparts.

Our government has always adopted a safe and prudent approach to offshore drilling, an approach that protects Canada's offshore workers and the environment.

It is vital that all development activities in Canada, and not just offshore activities, ensure the safety of workers and protect the environment. We have adopted many measures in Canada's resource sector to ensure that this objective is the main focus of our regulatory bodies.

I hope that all members will support this important legislation.

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a fourth mammoth hodgepodge bill that seeks once more to amend legislation that has absolutely nothing to do with the budget. It is a scandal. We also have to debate it under the pall of a time allocation motion. Once again, debate is being limited. We are only in our second week of work. It is an absolute scandal.

Should we be surprised? We have just started work again after a prorogation, and the more things change, the more they stay the same, as the saying goes. It is a new session of Parliament but we have the same old tactics from this government.

This is the fourth mammoth bill with which the Conservatives are trying once more to push through legislative changes so that Canadians will not notice. Here we have a 300-page document that amends a number of pieces of legislation that have nothing to do with the budget.

The NDP is familiar with the Conservatives' bad-faith manoeuvres, and we will do everything in our power to put a stop to these underhanded tactics.

This bill is a travesty. It is supposed to implement the budget, but it includes measures that have nothing to do with the budget. I am thinking particularly of the government's shady attacks on the rights of public service workers. That is why we have been demanding, since the start of this debate, that Bill C-4, the budget implementation bill, be divided into several parts so that the appropriate committees can properly analyze and study the proposed changes.

We were only on the first day of the debate when the Conservatives moved a time allocation motion in order to cut off debate and once again prevent Canadians from seeing the entire content of this bill. To us, this way of doing things is completely anti-democratic. We cannot even debate a bill without debate being cut off. This has become the norm in this institution. It is a complete scandal.

Not so long ago, the Conservatives were talking about democracy. Unbelievable. They were saying that they listen to Canadians and co-operate with other governments. However, when they are here, they do everything they can to obstruct the work of the House. They would simply like us to support their bills with no debate, no discussion. This government would like Canadians to write them a blank cheque. Speaking of cheques, we know what they do with those. It does not always make much sense, so this is a cheque they are not going to get.

Canadians are not fools. As the NDP leader told the Prime Minister, Canadians are going to judge this government's actions harshly. Canadians do not want to see their government act this way and show so little respect for democratic institutions. The NDP is offering Canadians a true alternative to this government's anti-democratic ways. In 2015, the NDP will show Canadians that we can govern this country and that we will not engage in these underhanded tactics.

Coming back to Bill C-4, I would now like to discuss a division of the bill that deals with the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. Section 4 of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Act will be replaced with the following:

There is established an independent board, to be known as the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, consisting of not more than 25 permanent members to be appointed by the Governor in Council and any number of temporary members that are appointed under section 6.

Thinking about this change to the number of board members, I can only wonder whether the Conservatives learned anything from the VRAB study in committee. Several accusations were made during that study, and many witnesses mentioned that the board was rife with patronage appointments, interference, procedural unfairness, a lack of expertise, and so on.

I will summarize what Mr. Leduc said; he was one of the witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. He said that, unfortunately, our veterans do not have the benefit of a fair and equitable hearing. I think that that statement is a good summary of the problems veterans encounter with that board.

Have the Conservatives made any changes to ensure that this board will be made fair and impartial? Absolutely not. They preferred to reduce the number of members who will sit on it from 28 to 25; the effect of this will be to slow down the work and increase waiting periods.

The Conservatives will also continue to appoint their friends to that board despite the fact that many of them have no expertise and no knowledge that would qualify them to sit on it. Once again, veterans are the ones being penalized by this type of measure.

As my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore stated quite rightly, the government now wants to balance the budget on the backs of our veterans, on the backs of our heroes. Is that a good approach? Of course not. The Conservatives are only bringing in half measures that do more harm than good to our veterans.

If we take a look at budgets in this period of fiscal austerity that prevails throughout the world, we see that our allies have absolutely not cut their veterans' budgets; in fact, several have increased them. The Conservative government is clearly bucking that trend and is making deep cuts to the Veterans Affairs budget. That is a clear sign of the lack of respect the government has for veterans.

In addition to these new cuts and those to the number of members who sit on the VRAB, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, the government is going to close nine district offices throughout the country. These Veterans Affairs Canada offices provided services to veterans. The Conservatives are also going to transfer Ste. Anne's Hospital, the last hospital to provide care for veterans, to the provincial government. The Conservatives continue to transfer veterans' services to government agencies that have no expertise, such as Service Canada, or they offload the task of caring for our veterans to the provinces.

According to the Conservatives, veterans are no different from other citizens. The government considers that it owes injured veterans absolutely nothing. The government feels that it has absolutely no moral obligation to veterans, which is scandalous. These days, veterans are angry with the government because of everything it has done over the past few years.

My colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore, the veterans affairs critic, recently introduced Bill C-447, which would completely dismantle the VRAB and implement a system with a peer-reviewed process for making medical decisions, which would be much more beneficial for veterans. A more effective and impartial board would better serve our veterans.

True to form, the Conservatives decided to introduce only half measures, such as reducing the number of VRAB members from 28 to 25, which could potentially increase wait times for hearings before this board. That is the extent of the government's respect for veterans.

Not just veterans will suffer the consequences of this budget implementation bill. The rights obtained and gains made in recent years by workers and public servants are also under attack. The most significant and most unacceptable changes in the latest budget implementation bill target Canadian workplaces.

In fact, the bill fundamentally changes Canadians' right to a safe and healthy workplace. How does it do that? It will take away the powers conferred on health and safety officers by the Canada Labour Code and give them to the minister.

The bill will also reduce a worker's right to refuse to work in dangerous conditions. We are convinced that no worker should be made to work in conditions that would put their health and safety at risk. This provision is ridiculous and we strongly oppose it. The government has always served as the watchdog for private business to ensure that workers have a safe environment. We wonder if the government knows what it is doing in this file. We really do wonder.

In addition, Bill C-4 will put practically all of the power related to health and safety into the minister's hands, without taking into account how that will affect protections for workers.

Bill C-4 also makes changes to the Public Service Labour Relations Act, eliminating binding arbitration as a method of dispute resolution in the public service. The only explanation for this change is that the government wants to provoke disputes with public servants.

I could go on and list more situations, but I will leave it at that.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the opposition House leader for this opportunity to once again confirm the approach of the government when it comes to the use of section 78(3), which is time allocation.

The purpose of section 78(3) is to allow the facilitation of the scheduling of our business here in Parliament. The member has often said that it is designed to limit debate, but we have always said it is not designed for that purpose at all. Time allocation is designed to ensure adequate debate and to create certainty for members of Parliament so they will know when the debate will occur. It provides some certainty of when to expect a vote to occur, so that members can organize their affairs in that manner. It facilitates the business of the House so that there is adequate debate and decisions are made.

For that reason, he has said on a number of occasions now that the amount of time we have provided is as long as he wishes or longer than he wishes. That is because time allocation is not a device for eliminating debate but a device for scheduling the House in an orderly and productive manner. That has been our approach throughout, as it was today.

This afternoon, in that regard we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-4, the economic action plan 2013 act. The bill was introduced on Tuesday on the heels of an impressive announcement from the Minister of Finance indicating that recent projections for the federal deficit show that the government is making strong progress, reducing that deficit by a further $7 billion.

Bill C-4 would build upon this strong track record. It includes initiatives that will build a strong economy and create jobs, support job creators, close tax loopholes, combat international tax evasion, and respect taxpayers' dollars.

Over half a million job creators will benefit from our expansion of the hiring credit for small business that is in the bill.

We are also introducing new penalties and offences for criminal tax evasion, while closing tax loopholes.

As always, we continue to respect taxpayers' dollars with initiatives that will improve the efficiency of the temporary foreign workers program and modernize the Canada student loans program.

That debate will continue tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday, we will debate a bill to establish the Canadian Museum of History, which is listed on today's notice paper.

Next Thursday, we start debating Bill C-5, the Offshore Health and Safety Act, which was introduced this morning.

Finally, as hon. members will recall, the House unanimously—and kindly—agreed earlier this week that the House will not sit on Friday, November 1, to enable Conservative members to attend our policy convention in Calgary.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-5, 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.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)