Natural Resources Committee on May 10th, 2021

[Dave Mercer]

I wouldn't say that we hit the mains. When the draft of the occupational health and safety regulations came out, we were able to make comments on it. It was due at the end of March, I believe. We made lots of comments and there were lots of ideas put forward. I'll give you one example. Offshore right now, we have first-aid programs for personnel with injuries—broken arms, broken legs, etc.—but we don't have anything in the regulations that covers mental health. There is no training offshore for mental health, only for first aid, so we wanted to implement and add physical and mental health training for mental illness.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

A person on an offshore platform is there until…

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Simard, you only have 10 seconds. I'm going to have to stop you right at the end of that.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Mercer, you mentioned mental health.

Generally speaking, when people are on an offshore platform, how long do they have to stay there?

[Dave Mercer]

Basically, when you go offshore, you go for 21 days; then you're home for 21 days.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, I'm going to have to stop you there.

Mr. Harris, we'll go over to you for six minutes. You'll be the last person asking questions in this panel.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank both of the witnesses for appearing today—Mr. Mercer and Ms. Johnson. I should note that Ms. Johnson and I, along with Ms. Jones, served in the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador, so we have experience with each other in another forum. It's good to see you both here today.

First of all, I want to note that it's been almost 30 years, or will be almost 30 years, since offshore safety was actually put in the hands of the C-NLOPB, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, and taken from the provincial and federal departments of labour that were formerly in charge of occupational health and safety in the offshore. That has been very disappointing to the unions from day one, in my experience, as I was in the House of Assembly when that was done in 1992. It was not until 2014 that there were actually enforceable regulations put in place.

These are the first attempts to do that in an enforceable way to provide the protection of the right to refuse unsafe work, to be able participate and have a say in the situation, and to have the same level of protection as you would have onshore.

It's particularly concerning that this has taken so long. I wonder if we had in place an independent offshore safety board, as recommended by Justice Wells of the Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry, whether there would be this delay of six or seven or eight years since 2014 to get these regulations in place.

Could both Mr. Mercer and Ms. Johnson comment on that, because Justice Wells asked for a separate, powerful, independent, knowledgeable body equipped with expert advice that would be devoted only to ensuring that the offshore health and safety regime were adequate.

Would that be in place now if we had that separate board? What's your opinion, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Mercer?

[Charlene Johnson]

I don't know where the delay lies, so I don't know if we can land that in the hands of the C-NLOPB , or if it's within the federal Department of Natural Resources. I'm not privy to know where those delays lie.

I do know that the C-NLOPB gets accolades around the world from the operators here for their expertise in safety and environment. They're spoken really highly of. However, as you know, Mr. Harris, they are also responsible for things like land sales and maximizing the recovery of the resource, so there was a suggestion to separate the two.

I've been saying for a number of years that we need an entity in this province that focuses solely on maximizing the recovery of the resource just like U.K. Oil & Gas Authority and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate have done. Maybe that is for the C-NLOPB as well, but with more resources. Maybe it's for somebody else in the C-NLOPB that focuses on safety and environment only.

We don't have a position as to who should do what. It just needs to be done in a manner that safety and the environment are first, and then there is that focus on developing our resources in a timely manner. I say this because when it comes to regulations—not just occupational health and safety, but also numerous other ones—with the time it takes in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Canada, compared with other jurisdictions, we are way behind other jurisdictions. That makes us less competitive.

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

Mr. Mercer.

[Dave Mercer]

To add to Ms. Johnson's remarks, the C-NLOPB has been doing a great job from the standpoint of protecting the offshore workers, yes, and following the regulations and ensuring that the operators are following them as well. As you can see from when Suncor was shut down, they went in and shut it down because there were violations.

The answer to Mr. Harris's question is that they still need enabling legislation. If there has to be a separate one, let's make a separate one. The fact of the matter is that we have to do whatever we possibly can to make it easier to protect the people in our workplace offshore. If we have to put an independent one in place, then so be it.

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

The question is not a question of the expertise, I guess, but a question of focus. It's been a long time and it hasn't been finished. Now the federal government obviously has responsibility.

What about the advisory board, Mr. Mercer? Was your organization consulted on the appointment of representatives to the federal or the provincial board?

[Dave Mercer]

Yes, and we did reach out to make sure we were part of that, but there was a lot of red tape I had to go through just to get assigned. You have to go in and apply for an appointment and I did that. I haven't heard anything back yet, but it is in the process and we'll see what happens when they get through that.

The government has reached out to us and we're working on that right now.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Mercer and Mr. Harris.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this panel.

I want to thank Ms. Johnson and Mr. Mercer, and I apologize to Mr. Mercer. My job is to make sure we stick to the time limits and I'm always cutting people off, and there always seems to be one person I cut off more than the other, and today that was you, so my apologies. I assure you, it was nothing personal.

[Dave Mercer]

It's okay because if we get on here the third time, you'll take that and give me all the time. No worries

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

All right. You have my word on that one. Good.

Thank you very much, both of you. I appreciate that. You're free to log off now.

We are now moving to our second panel, which is Minister Seamus O'Regan and two of the departmental staff, Mr. Hargrove and Mr. Gardiner.

I'm going to open the floor to the minister, and then we're going to have time for one round of questions.

Part of the reason I was trying to rush the first round is that the minister has been kind enough to extend his time until 12:30 and I didn't want to lose any more of that time than necessary.

I will stop talking now and turn it over to the minister.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much, Minister, particularly for accommodating our delays today.

We will have time for one full six-minute round.

I believe, Mr. McLean, that you're starting off.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Yes, I am.

Minister, I think your boom mike went down. The last part of your comments weren't clear.

Let me start by asking you a question.

Charlene Johnson, from Noia, was here before you, and she talked about the disease of delay around this issue in the offshore. It's been six years since December 2014, of course, when we actually needed to move this legislation forward. Six years is a long time for the federal government to get some regulations firmly in place, and we have failed in that—the government has failed.

The question, of course, is why did we fail?

I think even more failure is on the horizon. When you talked about the initial government bill coming here, the Senate wanted two years to get this done right, and two years would be a long time from now. It's not the end of 2021, but the end of 2022.

Can you explain the delay once more, and can you also tell us if you support the Senate amendments that were brought forward to limit it to a one-year timeline and have those regulations done at the end of this calendar year, 2021, please?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question.

It did take too long. There's no question about it.

This isn't in whatever notes were prepared for me, but I will say this and I think most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians would agree with me. The offshore has never figured very highly on the national lens or the national scope. I remember, in fact, in our first full year in office, there was a contingent that attended CERAWeek in Houston, as the member well knows. NRCan officials were there. The minister was there. I believe our premier of the day was there, as well as associate ministers and premiers from other provinces. It was a big celebration of Canadian energy. As NRCan made its opening remarks on behalf of the Canadian contingent, it spoke of the great oil producing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. There was an awkward pause as every Newfoundlander and Labradorian in the room waited for their province to be recognized as an oil producing province. It was not.

There is an institutional bias that I obviously have fought very hard to make sure to rectify, although to be fair to my colleagues, by the time I had arrived at NRCan, I think that lesson had been learned. I don't cast aspersions on either party. I think this is just sometimes the Ottawa mentality. The bottom line is that Newfoundland and Labrador is the third and very important oil producing province. Therefore, it deserves the same attention and is wanting of the same attention, particularly on things that are as important as safety regulations.

The regulations themselves are complex. As I said, they total near 300 pages. Let me reassert that when it comes to the lives and safety of the men and women who work in our offshore, you don't take shortcuts. We owe them that to keep them safe.

You consider the domestic and international standards—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I'm sorry to intervene. I only have a little bit of time here. I appreciate your answering these questions. Let me ask the next question, please.

This has taken 27 sitting days in Parliament. It's something you and I can grapple with. There were 27 sitting days from the time this received first reading until the time it received second reading on April 30. How much legislation went through the House of Commons when I had clearly indicated to your office that we wanted this moved forward as quickly as possible to get workers protected on the offshore? Yet it languished, it seems, in your government's House leader's office. We heard the bleating from your deputy House leader that we were being partisan, yet on bills we agree on, we weren't moving this one forward. We were asking to get these workers protected and we were saying we will pass this quickly, yet it waited.

Can you tell me why it waited in the lineup to get on the House of Commons agenda, please?

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

To be honest with you, I don't know if I'm capable of wading into the minutiae that goes on behind the scenes and the tos and fros on what we get onto a government agenda. I'm very grateful that it is on now. I'm very grateful to the honourable member and to his party and to other parties present for making it such priority. I will say that. It's with your help that we were able to get this done, so I'm very grateful for the moment.

Also, ingrained in every Newfoundlander and Labradorian is the fact that the offshore for Newfoundland and Labrador is jointly managed. Therefore, everything has to be not just vetted and agreed upon by Canada, but also by Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia by Nova Scotia. There are three governments. It's not something that happens at the snap of your fingers. It is complex. It does take time. I think that's precisely why the original bill in 2014 included a five-year period to get it done.

There have been extensive engagements with stakeholders, particularly through the 2016 to 2018 period. In fact, there was an amendment to the transitional regulations in 2017 to address a number of administrative irritants then. That fix set us back some time. Then with COVID, nobody could ignore the impacts of the global pandemic. It forced us to change the way we do everything, including institutional processes like regulation, drafting and adapting to virtual working. All of that was challenging, but I am confident that the work that remains to be completed within the time that this bill would provide will get done and it will be passed.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Minister.

Six years have gone past and right now we're in that dead zone where we don't have those regulations. One last time, I will encourage you in my last comments here to move this very quickly, so these workers are protected.

I think that's all my time, but thank you very much for being here today.

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

I could not agree with you more. You have my word.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. McLean.

Ms. Jones, I believe you are next.