Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 4th, 2013

[Robert Wells]

It was known, but it wasn't known fully.

With everything in Canada, really, you have to wait, including train disasters, for example. Take the Lac-Mégantic derailment, which the Transportation Safety Board is obviously working on now. We won't know what really happened for maybe another year or two. It's the same with a lot of accidents like that.

Your second question, on the night flights, interests me. When I warned the C-NLOPB about night flights, we didn't have a dedicated search and rescue helicopter. We didn't have a 15- or 20-minute wheels-up time. We didn't have FLIR, or forward looking infrared radar. We didn't have in the aviation industry what pilots call the “goodies” that we now have, Therefore, I was very concerned about night flights.

One of the great helpers to me was DND. Now, I couldn't make any recommendations about DND, but DND took me on night training flights. They took me on day training flights. They even let me go down on the wire. These were good experiences that taught me. When you are over the ocean at night, the ocean is black, and the sky is pretty black too. You have night-vision goggles that help you. We have these things now. But we didn't have them when I was concerned about night flights and, therefore, I gave my warning.

I'm not going to second-guess what C-NLOPB will do. They're going to have to make a decision on this. The situation now is much more amenable, if you like, to night flights. I don't know what they'll do, but it's more amendable, because we have these.

We didn't have auto hover. We now have auto hover, which holds the helicopter in place. The pilots are right there to instantly take over if they have to, but the helicopter is under the control of the flight engineer. Using a toggle switch, he can move it laterally forward or backward, but not up or down.

We have all these things. That means night flights can be viewed in a different manner, whatever the decisions are.

Still, I agree with you that it's more dangerous to rescue at night, and perhaps more difficult. That is true. But at the same time, a risk assessment has to be made, because maybe the risk is acceptable. If you go to the North Sea, they fly at night there. But again, as we know, the search and rescue effort in the North Sea can never really be duplicated in Canada's offshore. They have them coming from Norway, Scotland, the U.K., and Denmark. It's a different thing. The ground has changed since I brought it to the attention of the C-NLOPB.

There's another thing, too. We are going, I believe, into the north. I think oil exploration and extraction are going to go into the north. If they do, there's going to have to be night flying, because there's not much daylight as you go north. They found this in northern Norway; there's hardly any daylight there, and they have to fly at night.

What I think could be a solution or what could help toward a solution is to not schedule night flights. If you schedule night flights, then the flight will go as long as it's fit to fly. A helicopter can fly at night just as easily as it can in the day. It's when search and rescue becomes necessary and important that the night poses difficulties. It not only poses difficulties for passengers who might go down and find themselves in the water, but also poses dangers and difficulties to the very brave people who set forth to rescue them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

[Robert Wells]

They're at risk too. Lives have been lost in that situation also.

So there are greater dangers, but sometimes, as I put it in my report, night flights are an imperative. When night flights are an imperative, in my view they shouldn't be scheduled. Rather, a committee, or a group of qualified people, such as a pilot, a weather person, and a sea-state person, should make not a generalized decision but the decision of “Is it safe to fly tonight?”

If I myself, for instance, were on an installation on a clear night, with calm seas, no fog around, and moonlit, and somebody said to me, “Mr. Wells, if you want to get home, there's a seat for you”, I would probably say, yes, okay, I'll go.

But if there was fog, or the sea was particularly stormy, the winds were high, and situations were difficult, I would probably say no.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Justice Wells.

Mr. Regan, you have up to seven minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the witnesses.

First of all, I want to say to Judge Wells that if you watch this committee on other occasions, I think you might be interested to find and to conclude that we show a certain deference in relation to your experience and contribution.

[Robert Wells]

You're very kind.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I think we all feel that's appropriate.

Let me go back to recommendation 29 from your report. My colleague Mr. Harris has mentioned the issue of cost in terms of more helicopters, a 30-minute run-dry capability and so forth. One of the things we heard from the government and the C-NLOPB as a reason for not having a separate authority in relation to safety was that the expertise was within the board.

My question is really two-part. First, do you think that's a sufficient reason for not separating and having a separate authority? And two, in relation to this question of cost, what are the kinds of influences that you would see possibly being in conflict within the board and that I presume would have given risen to your recommendation to begin with?

[Robert Wells]

The problem was recognized first, or at least formally recognized, by Lord Cullen, arising out of Piper Alpha. The people who make the rules and give the permission to explore and to develop may have a certain mindset, and within the same organization there is a group who has to ignore those things and look purely at safety. There is the distinction and possibly the danger.

I have another concept in my own mind about a safety authority. I see such an authority as not simply being a safety authority for the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. I see it as a national safety authority operating first in Canada's only offshore, which is the east coast, but also if we go into the north, where it would also operate. It would operate wherever oil and gas were discovered offshore. In Norway there's an office in Stavanger, and in the U.K., there's an office here, there, or in the Shetlands or wherever. In Canada I would see such an office on the east coast, in Halifax, and a larger office in St. John's. If ever oil is developed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there would also be an office there, and the people would be moved around.

One of the things that the head of the U.K. authority said to me personally, and I also heard him say it at a conference in Canada a couple of years ago, was that you have to be careful about regulatory capture. Now to my knowledge, there has been no regulatory capture in Canada in the offshore—none. But if you look into the Gulf of Mexico tragedy, there was regulatory capture. There was a closeness between regulators and operators that shouldn't have been there. That's something to be guarded against. I see it as a national organization that would have branches where necessary and the movement of personnel between the branches so that regulatory capture would be most unlikely to occur.

I honestly believe that our society runs on oil. It's not just what goes in the gas tank. There are the tires, there is the clothing we wear, and there is the plastics industry, all of which are based on oil derivatives. I saw pictures of the first installations offshore and they were rickety wooden structures built off the beach. And yet we've gone now out to the edge of the continental shelf. Will we go down the slope? Quite possibly. So safety is going to be and has to be more rigorous.

I see it as a national agency with branches and people where necessary. That would be my concept. Whether it will happen, of course, I have no idea.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

I have a limited time, I have a lot more questions—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You have time for a short question and a short answer, Mr. Regan.

[Robert Wells]

Mr. Chairman, am I talking too long?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Robert Wells]

Stop me if I am.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

It's been extremely fascinating. If you could keep your answers a little shorter, we'd much appreciate it.

[Robert Wells]

Okay, well, I'll watch you and you stop me if I'm going on too long.

[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]

Go ahead and take the time, Mr. Barnes. I think this is important and everyone would agree.

[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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Your time is up, Mr. Regan.

We will now start the five-minute round, beginning with Mr. Allen, followed by Mr. Trost and then Ms. Duncan.

Go ahead please, Mr. Allen, up to five minutes for questions and answers.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Wells and Mr. Barnes, for being here today. It's been very insightful to listen to the background of the two-plus years of work that was done on the inquiry and the work, Mr. Barnes, that you're doing with respect to safety.

Mr. Wells, I'd just like to make sure I heard this correctly. I think I did. I think I've learned enough around here during the last eight years that I'm not going to put words in your mouth, because I know you would probably turn them around on me pretty quickly. In your report, you had recommendations 29(a) and 29(b), but I think you also said you used the word foresight to say that potentially 29(a) might take some time to get implemented and to be reviewed. You recognized in recommendation 29(b) that implementing those things would be perfectly satisfactory going forward.

Did I hear that right?

[Robert Wells]

You did hear that right. That's why I put it there as a fallback position, because I realized that 29(a) might not fly, at this time at any rate, and perhaps never. Who knows?

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

That's helpful.

You were just at a safety forum a week or so ago and it was one of the key issues. That was your recommendation 25 I believe on the safety forums.

Can you give a background on what some of the key topics and key issues were.

Also, I'd like your input on this part of it, Mr. Barnes. What are these safety forums accomplishing and how does that fit with this bill in creating that safety culture?

[Robert Wells]

Mr. Barnes, you were at the safety forum, weren't you?

[Paul Barnes]

I certainly was and also I presented at the last safety one. I've attended all of the safety forums the petroleum board has put on since it began holding them.

The topics ranged largely around aviation safety, because that seems to be the topic of interest in offshore Newfoundland these days. At the most recent forum we also talked about survival suits. As I mentioned in my testimony today, new suits are planned to be used in the offshore and they're going to be developed to a new standard. That standard was tested in the cold ocean conditions that we find off Newfoundland and Labrador. There was a discussion of that as well.

I think one of the beauties of these safety forums is the fact that not only can industry and regulators and the general public attend but so can the offshore workforce. They are provided an opportunity to attend those forums and to provide feedback from their perspective. I think that makes for a very worthwhile forum because you get a perspective that you don't often hear.

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

Are your companies that are under CAPP starting to work on the occupational health and safety aspects of the several hundred pages of this bill? How are your companies, the operators, progressing, in getting ready to set up all these occupational health and safety committees and everything else associated with this?