Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
I’m addressing this committee from my home on the island of Newfoundland—the ancestral homeland of the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk Peoples.
Not only that, it's also one of Canada's three proud oil-producing provinces.
I want to thank members for supporting our request to expedite the passage of this important legislation.
This issue is important to me. It's personal. It's about an industry that has brought so many benefits to my province. It impacts the workers here—my neighbours, my friends—who work in our offshore. I remember vividly the industry's nascent days. I was a young fellow working for Premier Brian Tobin some 20-odd years ago when the first platform, Hibernia, was under construction. Hopes were sky-high after so much despair about the cod fishery collapse in 1992. Today, it is a proud and mature industry, one that has accounted over the years for 30% of our economy, one out of every 10 jobs and 10% of employment. In fact, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador relies more on its royalties from oil than even the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The opening of the offshore industry in the Atlantic has created jobs and wealth for Nova Scotians, too, prior to and during the recent decommissioning of its two gas projects.
This, right now, is about the health and safety of the workers who built those great projects. This is about protecting them.
When I spoke about Bill S-3 to members of the Senate in February, I was struck by a remark from Nova Scotia Senator Jane Cordy. She said that when you live on the ocean, you understand the strength of the ocean.
The power of the sea is by no means lost on many of us. The president of ExxonMobil Canada told me that there is no harsher environment on the planet in which his company operates than Newfoundland's offshore.
The sea is powerful. That power also has tragic consequences. Two tragedies stand out for me. The first is the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, when all 84 on board perished during a terrible North Atlantic winter storm in 1982. I remember delivering the newspaper the next day and the size of that headline.
A royal commission led to new safety measures then; yet in 2009, tragedy struck again. A helicopter ferrying 18 workers to an offshore platform plunged into the ocean and only one—miraculously—survived. A judicial inquiry was struck that led to the passage in 2014 of the Offshore Health and Safety Act. The government of the day set up an interim safety regime, while giving officials five years to finalize permanent regulations. That deadline was extended by two years, and now we're asking for a new extension that would give us until the end of this calendar year to complete this work.
I know some members are ready to scream and shout “failure” over these delays, and frustration. I will tell you that it is warranted and shared. I'm frustrated. I said so during the Senate hearings and I'll repeat it again today: It should not have taken this long.
Consider this. One of our officials told senators that the original five-year schedule was ambitious, even if everything went like clockwork, because this is a complex process. We're talking about three governments and two independent regulatory bodies. This is how our offshore works. It's a joint management framework. The Atlantic Accord act clearly outlines areas of responsibility and stipulates decisions that require joint ratification. Therefore, you can't go it alone.
In addition, we've undertaken broad consultations with stakeholders, including industry—especially unions—all needing to find common ground on regulations filling some 300 pages. These regulations incorporate, by reference, 173 domestic and international standards, which are contained in documents totalling more than 15,000 pages.
Then it had to be put into legal language, in both languages. Toss in elections, a pandemic and a major interruption in 2017 when officials fixed parts of the 2014 interim regulations that were causing problems for the industry. All of that set us back.
Now, some will criticize these delays, and that is fair. Some of you may say that we can't blame the pandemic for all of this, and that is true to a certain extent. However, think of how long it took this committee, and how long it took Parliament, to figure out how to function in a pandemic.
All of our technical advisers at the federal and provincial levels, with their respective occupational health and safety departments, have been on the front lines of the COVID response.
However, it is misleading to say that this government doesn't care about workers. I mean, nothing could be further from the truth. These are my neighbours. These are the people who have built our province into what it is. Workers are at the heart of everything that we do here.
We're finalizing a world-class safety regime, and at the same time supporting an industry still hurting due to the pandemic and brutal 2020 oil market conditions. The reality is that not since the time of Brian Mulroney and John Crosbie has there been more done for the offshore by a federal government—by this government.
In 2019, $2.5 billion went to Newfoundland and Labrador as part of the renewed Atlantic Accord agreement. There has been close to $400 million to support workers and to lower emissions in the offshore during a pandemic. What industry has been asking us for years, we have done: reducing the time for exploratory drilling assessments from over 900 days to 90 days, without losing an inch of environmental integrity.
Just last week, I announced 16 projects funded through the offshore component of the emissions reduction fund. These are projects that can use carbon capture, that use wind and other renewable sources of energy that could power the industry's operations, projects that will lower emissions. In the face of challenges, we've had our workers' backs, and we continue to have their backs to protect them.
Mr. Chair, I am proud, as a son of Newfoundland and Labrador, of what we have achieved since this industry began to take root in the 1960s. The offshore industry has made life better for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It has kept families from separating in order to find work on the mainland.
We must protect these workers. The best way? By adopting a world-class security regime. I believe in it and I support it.
Bill S-3 will go a long way. I urge you to also support it.
I’m joined here today by my officials: Glenn Hargrove, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Petroleum Policy and Investment Office; and Tim Gardiner, Senior Director, Offshore Petroleum Management, Strategic Petroleum Policy and Investment Office.
I’m pleased now to take questions.
Thank you very much.
