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.