Natural Resources Committee on May 10th, 2021

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Minister. It's good to see you at our committee today.

First of all, as a parliamentarian in Newfoundland and Labrador, I want to thank you for the work you did in securing the oil industry and investments in the oil industry in our province through the pandemic. We heard earlier from Mr. Mercer from the union. We know how workers were impacted. I have to say that you did a remarkable job in responding to the needs of the industry in what was a difficult time.

We talk a lot about the drafting of the bill and what needs to happen between now and December 31. I understand your commitment, but as I indicated earlier, this is not just unilateral. It has to be done with the provinces as well, in this case with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. I know you have a great relationship with your provincial counterparts in both places, but can you speak to that relationship? How critical will it be to meeting this parliamentary deadline of December 31 to fulfill what the industry has been asking for for a long time?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I thank the honourable member for her question. As she knows, yes, all parties and both chambers of Parliament have worked expeditiously on this bill while doing their due diligence. In a minority Parliament, what we're seeing on this—people should know—is co-operation and collaboration and regular communication on the things that are really important.

It extends beyond this House. It extends, as the honourable member for Labrador knows, to joint management and the Atlantic Accord. It's something that just about every Newfoundlander and Labradorian, certainly ones of my age who remember the fighting days of the 1980s and the 1990s, knows ensures that joint management exists. That is a real and fulsome relationship, with true joint management of the offshore resources between the Government of Canada and the Government of Nova Scotia and the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador in their respective jurisdictions.

When it became clear in the fall of 2020 that the final regulations wouldn't be completed by December 31, 2020, our government and the Newfoundland and Labrador government and the Nova Scotia government each took legislative steps to extend the transition period so that workers would be protected under the existing occupational health and safety framework that existed.

If there is anybody out there watching with any doubt in their mind, every worker was looked after. We made sure that the transition period existed. It was at that point, for the federal government, that in order to signal our intent, this bill was introduced in the Senate on December 1. The bill was amended; passed by the Senate in mid-February, when it was introduced in the House; and in a similar time frame now, it's come to this committee. So things are moving.

I once again want to commend members of this committee on all sides of the House for the priority they've given this.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you.

Chair, do I have some time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Yes. You have two and a half minutes.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Wonderful.

The oil and gas industry, as you indicated, Minister, is definitely one of the priority industries, if not “the” priority, for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It sometimes seems like we're constantly competing in this industry with our western counterparts. I have to acknowledge the fact that you've certainly moved the dial on that and ensured that attention was being focused on the oil and gas industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Of course, as MP Harris outlined earlier when Ms. Johnson was on, I think we all have a history in this industry in the province, and have all, at one point, had our hand in different policies and regulation pieces around it. Maybe you could talk a little bit about how Bill S-3 will affect workers in this province into the future, and how important it is for a province like Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I don't have to remind the honourable member of the Ocean Ranger, and I certainly don't have to remind the honourable member of Cougar 491. They have left indelible marks on our province. I remember being a paper boy delivering that newspaper, the Evening Telegram, with that headline.

I remember that one of my neighbours was a man who had received one of the distress calls and how he didn't leave his house for a week. His newspapers just kept piling up. I remember delivering those papers because I remember my street had a lot of older people who waited all day for their newspaper to be delivered and stood in their door just waiting to see that paper to make it real for them. It shook us to the core and that continues to this day.

When you look at Cougar 491 and that crash, it just reminded us all of how important safety is in what is still a very dangerous business. It is one where all hands are completely committed to the highest safety regulations. I can't say that enough about the unions. I can't say that enough about the principals who were out their drilling the oil. I can't say that enough about government.

But, it is really important, particularly in the wake of the recommendations after the crash of Cougar 491, that those regulations be updated and that all hands agree on what they should be and that we enforce them. This is a major step forward in that direction, building on a long and proud history now of some 30 years of working in the North Atlantic in the offshore in what ExxonMobil Canada calls the harshest environment they operate in. You can only operate in a harsh environment like that if everybody understands what a priority safety is, and that this is the only way it's going to work. We feel now that all our people there will be best served by the absolute most up-to-date safety regulations held and enforced by everybody involved.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Jones.

Moving on to Mr. Simard, you have six minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're pleased to have you back with us, Minister.

We had also discussed Bill S-3. I had assured you that I had no objection and would not do anything to prevent the bill from moving forward expeditiously. I believe things should go smoothly.

Since everyone seems to be cooperative, I hope that you will allow me to ask you a question about the energy sector.

In your address, you spoke more broadly about the energy sector. I'd like to raise a concern I have about the hydrogen strategy you are currently deploying. I am specifically referring to grey hydrogen. I don't think it should be part of a green shift.

Before implementing this strategy, I believe that it would be important for you to give consideration to the relationship between hydrogen production and what it means in terms of carbon. I don't know if you've been made aware of that.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. May.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, I will let Mario finish his question because I was hoping he was going to come back around to what we're talking about, but I would ask for relevance on that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Simard, we need to keep our questions focused on the three clauses of the bill that's before us. I'd ask that you....

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would simply like to comment that Ms. Jones mentioned the importance of the petroleum sector to Newfoundland and Labrador more generally. I believe that the fossil fuels energy sector has been discussed more generally by a number of colleagues. The minister, in his presentation, also made a few more general comments about the sector. That's where I'm coming from too.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

That's fine, and I don't want to cut you short, but if you're asking about something that's relevant to the bill, it's one thing. Certainly the importance of the sector to Newfoundland, obviously, is connected to this legislation, but I think you veered off the path a little bit there, so if you could just focus back on the legislation, we would be grateful.

Thank you.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Will Newfoundland and Labrador be included in the hydrogen strategy?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

That's right. Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

All right, thanks.

Mr. Simard, you have the next question, please.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I don't want to put you on the spot.

I'm going to return to what my friend Mr. McLean said a short while ago. Quite a lot of time went by before the bill reached us. In response to Mr. McLean, you said that you did not want to get involved in the machinery of government. And yet, it would appear that there is consensus on the bill. I don't think anyone here is going to raise any objections.

Don't you think that various delays kept bumping this bill lower down on the legislative agenda? The prorogation of the House and other matters also slowed us down.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Yes, Monsieur Simard, there were a number of things that added up. The end result is that I'm not terribly happy with the fact that it has taken this long, and again, I'm grateful to everyone here and to all parties for understanding the weight of the issue. The co-operation that we've seen is something Canadians should know about, because you don't hear often enough what happens when we all agree on something. I think that's important and agree that something needs to be improved, i.e., the timeline of this important measure. To revisit some of the numbers, we are talking of 173 domestic and international standards and some 15,000 pages, and we wanted to make sure that we got it right. Again, some of these reasons I will brook, but others don't seem to add up, obviously, and that is why I wanted to make this work as quickly as possible. That relied heavily on you, on this committee and on our respective parties and, again, I'm very grateful for that.

When you look at the next 12 months, again, there will be no shortcuts then either when it comes to the health and safety of workers on our offshore, and no shortcuts when it comes to keeping them safe. While the bill before senators may only have three clauses, the regulations they address were far more substantial, and we have a detailed implementation schedule in place with the Department of Justice and with our provincial partners.

As I've noted, there are a number of statutory requirements as well as stakeholder engagement and provincial coordination that have to happen. Particularly in the current environment, it's not something that we can take shortcuts on; we need to get these regulations right. Workers definitely deserve no less than that, and they certainly deserve the commitment of so many members of this committee and our respective parties, and I'm delighted to bear witness to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Minister.

Mario, you're under 10 seconds. Use them as you see fit.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Do you have an accurate timeline for the implementation of permanent regulations?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks, Mr. Simard. I think we're out of time.

We're going to have to move on to Mr. Harris, who will be last up on this panel.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Minister O'Regan this morning.

Thank you for joining us.

I share with you, of course, the memories of the Ocean Ranger tragedy and the Cougar helicopter tragedy. I attended the hearings of both of those inquiries. In fact, I had standing at the offshore helicopter inquiry run by Justice Wells. I know how important offshore safety is to everybody, but only in 2014 did we have enforceable regulations for safety in the offshore in the same way they occurred on land, so it's very important that they be in place.

I understand that they're complicated, and it takes time to get these put in place, even though 300 pages is not really a lot for regulations. Nevertheless, what galls me and I think many people is the fact that this regime was allowed to lapse on December 31 of last year. The regulations since then are unenforceable in the same sense that they were. That's spelled out in the legislation itself. No one can be convicted of an offence under the regulations if it occurred between January 1 of this year and whenever this law is put into place. By the way, we want to put them in place as quickly as possible, and we support that.

Can the minister explain how it is that these offshore safety regulations were allowed to lapse in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore? It wouldn't happen to any other regulations. Is this a case of someone being asleep at the switch or not realizing the importance of these regulations in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I thank the honourable member for his question.

No, I don't think it's a case of anybody being asleep at the switch. It is an incredibly important question to get right, so I'll ask Tim Gardiner from my department to maybe flesh out for you what happened here and precisely answer your questions, Mr. Harris.

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

I want a short answer, not a long answer. I want a precise answer, because I have only a few more minutes left.