Bill S-3 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Offshore Health and Safety Act

This enactment amends the Offshore Health and Safety Act to postpone the repeal of its transitional regulations.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

moved that Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Offshore Health and Safety Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I am addressing the House from my home on the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Wahnapitae peoples.

As members know, this is a very important bill. When we look at the oil-producing provinces here, with the minister's own province of Newfoundland, this is really an important issue to the minister. This is really an important issue that affects his neighbours and friends when we look at offshore issues that we have dealt with.

When the minister first started to work here, with former premier Brian Tobin, he was 20 years old, and that was 20 years ago. At the time, there was only one platform under construction, which was the Hibernia. When we look then and now, we know that developing the platform designs and fabrication work completely ensures that we could work safely in one of the harshest environments there is. Ultimately, achieving first oil was crucial for the financial future of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Today, we have a proud and mature industry, one that has accounted for 30% of the province's GDP, 13% of the labour compensation and 10% of employment over the years. It has been successful because of the people at the heart of this, the determined and proud workers, but also because of efforts by this government to support the industry. Let me be clear: There has been no government that has done more for the Newfoundland labour offshore than this government, not since the time of Brian Mulroney and John Crosbie.

In the face of challenges, we had our workers' backs. We introduced a dedicated offshore component to the emissions reduction fund to address our common mission to lower emissions, and we look forward to having more to say on this program soon.

We provided $320 million to the provincial government to support workers and increase the environmental performance of the offshore, real action to maintain jobs and protect the future of this sector. We cut through a system that represented government at its worst, reducing regulatory hurdles and cutting down on a lot of the environmental assessments, from an astounding 905 days to 90 days, without losing an inch of the environmental integrity. We did this understanding how crucial the sector has been for Newfoundland and Labrador.

The industry provided the province, the provincial government, with more than $20 billion in royalties between 1997 and 2019, funding key services and infrastructure, from health and education to highways and hockey rinks. A similar story could be told for the offshore impact of our neighbours in Nova Scotia. That province's two natural gas projects created jobs for Nova Scotians before they were decommissioned.

When we look at the capital spending, it was about $8.5 billion over 20 years, and $1.9 billion in royalty payments between 2000 and 2017. Most importantly, our offshore impacts people, supports workers, builds communities. In my province, in Newfoundland, where the minister is right now, and it also applies to Nova Scotia, this industry has created an opportunity to generate hope, reunite families and establish livelihoods.

Building this industry has not been easy. We have had to deal with the engineering challenges of safety, extracting oil in the unforgiving North Atlantic, where storms can cause rogue waves as high as 20 or 30 metres, in what the CEO of Exxon Mobil has described to me as a very harsh environment to operate in, one of the harshest places in the world.

The first was the Ocean Ranger tragedy in 1982, which left 84 people dead, 54 of whom were Newfoundlanders. The resulting royal commission led to many safety improvements. The minister was young at the time, but he remembers the delivery of The Evening Telegram newspaper, which carried the news. It was something that shook the minister and a lot of people in the community. Equally agonizing was the sense of helplessness and pain.

Despite these challenges, tragedy struck again in 2009. Mechanical problems sent a helicopter taking 18 workers to the offshore platform plunging into the Atlantic. Only one somehow miraculously survived. A public inquiry after the 2009 tragedy led to the proposed reforms that were largely incorporated under the Offshore Health and Safety Act passed in 2014.

That brings me to the objective of the legislation we are now debating. Bill S-3, as amended by our colleagues in the other place, would give Canada, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland better health and safety regulations for our workers. Passing it would make sure that transitional regulations from 2014 would apply retroactively to January 1 of this year.

I realize this whole process is taking far too long and we are all frustrated. I will explain the reasons for the delay shortly, but let me first speak about the spirit of the act. The Offshore Health and Safety Act clarifies the roles of both levels of government, as well as regulators, in preventing accidents and injuries. It outlines the safety roles played by everyone involved, from owners, operators and employers to supervisors, employees and contractors.

In addition, the act added the following to the safety regime: a new appeal process when someone is accused of violating the rules; the establishment or clarification of employee rights, including the right to refuse dangerous work without the risk of reprisal; a workplace culture that makes clear that these safety concerns are a shared responsibility of everyone involved; an efficiency regulatory regime that contains no jurisdictions of inconsistency; and finally, the inclusion of the transportation of employees to and from these sites.

I want to focus now on the parts of the act that are especially relevant to today's discussion. I am referring to the creation of the 2014 transitional regulations so that three governments could take the time to do this right and finalize permanent regulations.

This transition arrangement was set to expire at the end of 2020. The Government of Canada is asking, through Bill S-3, for an additional year, to December 31 of this year, to get this done. I would be among the first to acknowledge that it seems at first glance rather surprising that we would take up to seven years to finalize this process. This is complex work. These regulations run close to 300 pages. They need to be translated. We need to go over them with a fine-tooth comb to ensure they are precise and consistent in both official languages.

These regulations incorporate by reference 173 domestic and international health and safety standards, which are contained in a document totalling more than 15,000 pages. We need all three levels of government to vet and approve these finalized regulations, which would involve multiple ministries and two joint management regulatory boards. We have to respect our joint management framework. We have to work in partnership, and sometimes that takes more time, but that is how we develop the best legal framework in the world to protect our workers and how we constantly improve it. That is why it is the best. It is strengthened by consulting others, unions, companies and Canadians.

Other challenges are that while others on these permanent regulations—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I am going to have to interrupt the parliamentary secretary. I should have given him a heads-up that we would be doing this partway through this remarks. We are going to Statements by Members. He will have the remaining time in this period for his speech when we get back to debate on this subject, likely later this day.

We will now go to Statements by Members. The hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Offshore Health and Safety Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources has 10 minutes remaining in his time for his remarks, and that will be followed a period of 10 minutes for questions and comments.

We now go to the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I will pick up where I left off before question period.

As I mentioned earlier, our government is consistently working to improve the regulatory framework, and we have to do this the right way. This is strengthened by consulting with others, by consulting with unions, companies and Canadians.

Stakeholders objected to a number of unnecessary administrative burdens. We agreed and scrapped them in order to cut the red tape. Another challenge is that not all interim regulations for 2014 complied with international standards because the government of the day cut corners in order to rush this through. That caused problems and uncertainty with rigs that came from other jurisdictions.

Therefore, in 2017, in the middle of this, we had to fix it, and it took time to clean this mess up. As well, we have to remember this is happening against the backdrop of a global pandemic, which changed everything. It changed how we work and where we work. It is not the reason we did not meet our deadline, but it has certainly exacerbated the delays.

For example, we were scheduled to start full-day, in-person drafting sessions the week of March 23 and then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, we were all working from home, with justice department drafters left to figure out how to do this virtually and securely. The pandemic, simply put, cost us time. All our technical advisers at both the federal and provincial levels are with their respective occupational health and safety departments. They have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 response.

Despite these factors, I agree this has taken too long, but I assure the House we will get this done in the right way. Natural Resources Canada has a detailed implementation schedule, working in co-operation with the Department of Justice and the two provincial governments. We are close, and the Minister of Natural Resources has directed his officials to get this done by year's end.

Bill S-3 would give us the breathing space to get there. Safety is paramount and any shorter time frame would mean shortcuts would be taken, and when it comes to the health and safety of workers, shortcuts are unacceptable.

We must provide these workers with the best protections by adopting a world-class safety regime. I believe in it, and I support it.

Bill S-3 will really help us, and I urge members to support it.

We have spoken to our colleagues across the aisle on the importance of passing this bill quickly, and I want to express my appreciation to them and to the House leaders for agreeing to that. We continue to do the necessary work of protecting our workers today and in the future.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague who has recently been named the parliamentary secretary and I am looking forward to working with him on these very important files.

In the first part of his speech, which was regrettably split in half here, I did notice that he said this is an important issue to the minister as it is in his actual backyard, Newfoundland. However, the workers in the minister's backyard have had no regulations for four months. This was passed in the Senate in December 2020, on regulations that lapsed in December 2020.

When we pass this bill in the House of Commons, it has retroactive legislation. If this is so important to the minister, why has it taken him so long to bring it to this House for us to debate and get through the process?

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my hon. colleague on the natural resources committee.

Yes, this is why we need to get the bill passed in the House as quickly as possible. It will be retroactive so that we make sure that we get all of these regulations that protect the workers' health and safety and also implement all these different labour codes.

I encourage all members in the House to ensure that we pass this legislation as quickly possible so that we can protect our workers and establish these health and safety regulations to be implemented.

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

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary explained the importance of this legislation and we agree with speedy passage, but he has not explained why it has taken six years since the government has been in power to actually develop these permanent regulations. He certainly has not explained why they were not keeping their eye on the ball and allowed the regulations to expire. There are no enforceable safety regulations in the offshore since January 1. That is a shame and the minister needs to explain why nobody had their eye on the ball. We cannot blame that on the pandemic.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as we indicated as soon as the bill is passed, it will be retroactive to protect the workers, but these regulations are very complex. There are over 300 pages. A lot of work has been done. When we look at international standards, when we look at the co-operation and the dialogue between the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Government of Nova Scotia, there are three governments involved. There have been a lot of stakeholder engagements to make sure we get this right.

Yes, in the last year there has been the pandemic, but we want to make sure we get this right and the consultation and the level of engagement by all levels of government is really important. We are taking this seriously. There have been delays. We have to move forward and I appreciate the support and co-operation of all the members of the House to get this passed.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I share some of the rage with the hon. member for St. John's East on this matter. I can remember the Ocean Ranger going down in 1982 with the loss of lives of 84 people, but more recently, the helicopter crash that took place, the Cougar flight 491. Let us all pause for a moment in memory of all those lives lost through the negligence of the regulations and the safety of the offshore and the Newfoundland and Labrador workers who go to work in the offshore. The Cougar flight crash in 2009 led to an inquiry. Mr. Justice Wells made specific recommendations. Yes, we have to get this passed, otherwise as the leader of the Unifor said, it is a #epicfail.

In the meantime, where is the independent safety regulator for our offshore? There is one in the U.S., U.K., Norway and Australia. Why is the government ignoring the recommendations from the safety inquiry of Justice Wells?

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with the tragedies that have occurred offshore on the rigs, it is really important that we do this. We are getting Bill S-3 done and are getting it right. We are making sure that the safety regulations and labour codes will make sure that we get this right.

We are continuing from the framework of 2014, and we have to make sure that it is implemented in the right way. We will continue to look at other ways to protect the health and safety of our workers. It is important that we look to do this by December 2021.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member indicates that this takes a high level of engagement with governments and stakeholders and that everything will be retroactive, as if somehow that will make up for the lack of proper oversight here. It should not have taken years for the Liberals to finally decide to work on this. They are now putting our workers in such precarious circumstances.

What groups, stakeholders and governments have they already worked with, and what results have they had from those conversations?

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for the engagement, we have not only looked to the provincial governments. There have also been many stakeholder meetings. We are now ready to move forward with implementing this.

For the workers, it is really important that we establish a framework to make sure that we do this in the right way. As I said, the bill is about protections, and within the next months we will make sure that it is implemented. With the co-operation of the House, we can do so by the end of this year, and then we will move forward with providing other supports to our offshore workers.

Consultation is important, and we have done extensive consultations. We need to continue to make sure that we get the bill right.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to what was said about Unifor, which criticized the government for letting the transitional regulations expire.

I would like to draw a parallel and hear from the parliamentary secretary about how, once again, it seems that the Liberals let files languish while they drag their feet, as we saw this week with the Port of Montreal. There is this tendency to not take action when it is needed or, at least, to not act more quickly.