Mr. Speaker, the rash decision by Hibernia management to transfer a large chunk of work from the Marystown shipyard to Saint John makes no sense and has to be reversed.
That was the message that a delegation from the Burin Peninsula and I conveyed this morning to my colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources. I thank her for undertaking to look into our concerns.
The proposed removal of work from Marystown has nothing to do with a lack of expertise, as suggested by my friend from Laurier-Sainte-Marie. On that one he is dead wrong, as I believe he now realizes.
The good news is that the Offshore Petroleum Board is going to review the Hibernia management decision. I am confident it will determine what I believe to be the case, namely that the whole affair has more to do with industry politics than it does with deadlines. The work can be just as quickly done at Marystown as it can be at Saint John and should be.