Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague with his understanding of the issue, particularly, coming from the Maritimes where so many people are involved in the offshore industry.
Where I live in northern Ontario, we have people who are on flying crews and in isolated communities. They are away from home for a long time. However, when we look at the offshore industry in particular, we see there have been a number of disturbing accidents and problems in the past. Certainly, the whole country still remembers what happened with the Ocean Ranger disaster and the lack of safety protocols that left so many men exposed and damaged so many families. We see the loss of the helicopter that went down recently off Newfoundland. There were the same questions and same issues of safety.
Now we see the issues across the country, with respect to various pipeline proposals, where pipelines have blown out because the proper safety systems were not in place, causing either loss of life or heavy damage to the environment.
Given the sensitivities in the maritime culture in terms of fisheries, habitat and danger to people out on the ocean, I would ask my hon. colleague this question: what does he think we need to do specifically in terms of safety issues and making sure there are clear rules in place?