Okay.
We therefore agree with Senator David Wells that to allow the transitional regulations to lapse at the end of 2020 has been a dereliction of duty by the current federal government, which has had six years to develop and implement permanent regulations. This is particularly the case in light of the tragedies that offshore workers have experienced in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador due to the absence of sufficient health and safety regulations in the past.
All of you are probably familiar with the collective trauma experienced with our communities after disasters such as the Ocean Ranger and Cougar Flight 491 Well, today we're right back where we started. Our members in the offshore sector have worked within a regulatory void for over four months with no occupational health and safety regulations to protect them.
While we understand this is a complicated process to implement permanent regulations, the offshore industry has advanced far beyond where it was in 2014, and it is more important than ever to have updated regulations in place to protect our members. Six years is more than enough time. I'm glad to see that the Senate amended the bill to reflect the idea. This should be the final extension for the deadline, and permanent regulations should be in place by the end of the year. Unifor also supports the requirement that the Department of Natural Resources submit a progress report to the Senate by June 15 outlining a clear implementation schedule.
I urge Parliament to pass Bill S-3 as soon as possible so that the transitional regulations are revived, even if only until the end of the year while permanent regulations are being sorted out. Our members in the offshore industry work in a unique environment with significant safety challenges, and many workers had to lose their lives for the health and safety regulations to get to where they are today.
However, I'll also ask the government to do more to investigate how these regulations can be strengthened as part of the development of permanent regulations to ensure that companies cannot simply shirk their responsibility to conduct preventive maintenance and repairs by pausing operations as they have done during the COVID-19 crisis. In March, Unifor submitted detailed recommendations to strengthen these regulations as part of the stakeholder consultations. Unifor believes that solutions to health and safety issues are best resolved with full participation of workers' health and safety representatives of the joint health and safety committees in all workplace activities related to occupational health and safety. Workers have a right to know about hazards in the workplace. They have a right to fully participate in workplace health and safety, and of course, workers always have the right to refuse.
Because offshore work is so remote, workers are not always protected by the intersection of workplace occupational health and safety inspectors who may be hours or days away. The offshore workplace is one where the internal responsibility system, or IRS, must be strong. We believe that the amendments we are proposing to the regulation enhance the IRS by giving the workplace joint health and occupational...and the worker representatives more tools to work with helping employers solve sometimes very complex safety issues while protecting—