Ryan Cleary

[Offshore Health and Safety Act, November 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question, but I do not have an answer.

The provincial Progressive Conservative government led by Kathy Dunderdale in Newfoundland and Labrador is on side and on record as supporting the creation of an independent safety regulator. As I said in my speech, it was the most important recommendation of the Wells inquiry report into the 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491. The provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador is behind this, but the federal Conservative government is not.

We do not have an answer. The current government has been asked that question many times, but we are awaiting an answer. It may be that one of the many Conservative MPs in the House sitting across from me today will get up and answer that question.

Why have they failed to act?

[Offshore Health and Safety Act, November 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time I have stood in the House to speak about the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. Since being elected in May 2011, I have spoken about the C-NLOPB too many times to count. I have spoken about the problems and shortcomings of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board many times, including patronage appointments.

The highest-profile appointment that comes to mind was the one-time campaign manager of Peter Penashue, the former Conservative MP for Labrador who served as minister of intergovernmental affairs in his short stint in federal politics. That campaign manager was no more qualified to serve on the board of the C-NLOPB than he was to run Penashue's fraudulent election campaign, which is why he is no longer on the board of the C-NLOPB.

For another thing, I cannot say how many times I have made reference to the 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491 that killed 17 offshore workers. The public's confidence in the C-NLOPB has been shaken. There is no doubt about that. Therefore, it is a welcome change to stand in the House today to support a bill that is actually focused on the health and safety of offshore workers.

It is about time. It is well past due. It is an important victory for the labour movement in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia, as well as for provincial New Democrats in both provinces, who have been fighting for this for a dog's age. They have been advocating for a legislated offshore safety regime for about a dozen years.

I stand in support of Bill C-5, an act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act. The bill itself amends the Atlantic accord to place health and occupational safety regimes into legislation. The bill clarifies the individual and shared roles and responsibilities of the federal government, the provincial governments, regulators, operators, employers, suppliers, and employees.

Bill C-5 is based on three basic principles. The first is that offshore occupational health and safety laws must provide offshore workers with the same protection as onshore workers. The second principle is that the legislation protects and enshrines the rights of offshore workers. The third principle supports an occupational health and safety culture that recognizes the shared responsibilities in the workplace.

The bill authorizes both levels of government, federal and provincial, to work together to develop regulations for offshore health and safety. The bill also requires Transport Canada to develop occupational health and safety regulations for offshore workers in transit, such as when they are travelling to and from marine installations, rigs, and gravity-based structures, for example. There are only two ways to get offshore, in case it is not obvious. One is by air, meaning by Cougar helicopter or rescue helicopter, and the other is by offshore supply boat.

Let me be clear: Bill C-5 is positive news. It is good news. It is welcome. However, the bill does not go far enough. I have to stand again today to talk about the federal Conservatives and their failure to put the health and safety of offshore workers front and centre. Before all else, the health and safety of our people must be paramount, but that is not the case.

I referred earlier to the 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491 about 30 nautical miles from St. John's. Seventeen people died. There was one survivor. It was an incredible tragedy, yet another in a string of tragedies for maritime people such as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It was felt in every nook and cranny of Newfoundland and Labrador and around the country.

Justice Robert Wells conducted an inquiry into the Cougar crash. In his words, the most important recommendation of the entire report is recommendation number 29.

That recommendation called for the creation of an independent and stand-alone regulator to oversee safety in the offshore oil industry. Where is the independent safety regulator? It has been three years. The government of Newfoundland and Labrador supports it. Where does the Conservative government stand? Why has it failed to act on the most important recommendation of the Wells inquiry report?

Let me quote from that Wells report. It states:

...the Safety Regulator should be separate and independent from all other components of offshore regulation and should stand alone, with safety being its only regulatory task.... Independent and stand-alone safety regulators are now in place in Norway, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and the same concept is...being developed in the United States for the Gulf of Mexico.

We will remember the Gulf of Mexico and the Deepwater Horizon. The rig caught on fire and almost a dozen workers were killed. There were billions of dollars in damages and cleanup costs.

Is the health and safety of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Canadians not as important as the health and safety of Norwegians, Australians, Americans and the people of the United Kingdom? Of course, it is.

In his inquiry report, Justice Wells wrote that the oversight rules he was recommending would not conflict with the roles of other regulators, but would, when necessary, enhance other regulatory measures. In the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore, Justice Wells said that “it is time for a new”, and I underline “new”, “and more comprehensive approach to offshore safety regulation”. What Bill C-5 fails to do is to create that independent safety regulator.

Earlier this month, Transport Canada released proposed safety regulations for offshore helicopter operations. They were announced about a week and a half ago. The new regulations would prohibit the operation of offshore flights when weather or water conditions would make ditching in the water unsafe. Under the new rules, crew members would also be required to wear water immersion survival suits and operators would have to carry an emergency underwater breathing apparatus for each passenger aboard the flight.

As part of that news, the federal Minister of Transport issued a news release, in which she stated:

Our government is committed to strengthening aviation safety for all Canadians. We have worked closely with the aviation community to develop these new regulations, which will improve the safety of offshore helicopter operations for both passengers and crew.

After that news release was issued and the story broke, I had telephone calls from offshore workers and their families. They were upset. Why were they upset? They were irate because these proposed new regulations are not new regulations. Lana Payne, the Atlantic director for Unifor, which represents workers on the Terra Nova FPSO and the Hibernia oil platform, pointed out that those recommendations were already implemented in Newfoundland and Labrador. The C-NLOPB was responsible for implementing those measures in the aftermath of the Cougar crash. Lana Payne stated:

Nothing in this statement from the minister is going to change one iota in terms of improving safety in the offshore, because most of it has been implemented.

The offshore workers who contacted me were furious. “Why is this a news story?”, they asked. “What is the news in this story? What makes this news? There is nothing new here”. They were absolutely right.

What is also missing from the current regulations, another shortcoming, is the requirement for helicopters to have a 30-minute run-dry capability. In other words, helicopters should have the capability to stay in the air for 30 minutes after their gearboxes run dry of oil. Please God that never happens, but we know it has happened in the past.

That recommendation was made ages ago; it was two or three years ago. What has become of that recommendation? Nothing has become of that recommendation.

We support the bill at second reading. It is a win for offshore workers. It is a long-fought win for the New Democratic parties in both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, and the bill looks good on the industry.

However, if the Conservatives think that offshore workers, their unions, their families, or even the provincial governments are satisfied, they are horribly mistaken. This is but one step in the right direction. Another huge step would take place once there is word that the federal government will finally act on an independent safety regulator.

What keeps me positive is the fact that our offshore workers, their unions, and their families do not miss a trick with the current Conservative government. New Democrats will not stop. We will not relent until the safety of our workers is paramount above all else. They deserve no less.

[Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, November 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member again pointed out, as has been pointed out numerous times today, that the Conservatives refuse to speak in this debate for the most part, but then again, even if they did speak, they are not in the habit of answering questions anyway.

In 2009, there was the crash of Cougar flight 491. It was an incredible tragedy, in which 17 people were killed. The number one recommendation from the Wells inquiry into that crash was for the creation of an independent safety regulator to regulate safety in the offshore, separate from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and the industry, an independent safety regulator.

One question I have for the Conservatives, if they were willing to speak today, if they were willing to answer questions today, is this: what of that recommendation for the independent safety regulator, the number one recommendation of the Wells inquiry? What of that recommendation?

[Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, November 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly feel for British Columbia in terms of the closure of the Coast Guard station there. There has been the closure, as the hon. member pointed out, of the rescue sub-centre in St. John's despite objections from just about every quarter. The technicians who ran that centre in St. John's knew every nook and cranny of the Newfoundland and Labrador coast, as well as the dialect. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians speak a certain way, with character and a certain charm, but it is different from dialects and accents in other parts of the country.

On the one hand, the people in Newfoundland and Labrador can more than relate to the opposition to the closure of the Coast Guard station in Vancouver, but it is inexplicable how the Conservatives can explain the cuts on either coast. Of course, we are not hearing anything from the Conservatives today, so we will not be getting any answers.

[Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, November 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of Bill C-3—tentative support, I should add. The bill includes the enactment of the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act and amendments to the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act, and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. The bill also makes consequential amendments to other acts.

Yes, Bill C-3 is an omnibus bill that makes amendments to five acts. Is that too much legislation to stuff into one act? Well, of course it is, but such is the modus operandi of the Conservative government: pack and pile as much legislative change as it can into an omnibus bill so as to limit the opposition's scrutiny and to get as much by Canadians as possible.

However, Canadians are catching on to Conservative tactics and tricks. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians caught on a long time ago, but then the rising usually starts in the east. That said, we support the bill at second reading because there is a modest improvement to marine security, the key word being “modest”.

Our support for Bill C-3 is cautious. Our support is moderate at second reading. Committee scrutiny and input with expert witnesses will determine whether we will vote for or against the bill at third reading.

What I want to focus on is the government's complete lack of credibility on issues regarding marine safety—complete lack of credibility, the absence of credibility. That side of the House is where credibility goes to die.

We know there are two sets of response times for the Canadian military search and rescue. During banking hours, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, the military's Cormorant search and rescue helicopters have a wheels-up response time of 30 minutes to get off the ground and respond to a distress call. After 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, during evenings, weekends and holidays, the wheels-up response time is two hours. That is what I mean when I say there is no credibility on issues regarding marine safety; it is where credibility goes to die.

Ask the family members of Labrador's Burton Winters about credibility and they will tell us about the death of their 14-year-old son because help did not come quickly enough. Marine safety and Conservative credibility do not belong in the same sentence. Marine safety and Conservative credibility do not belong in the same breath.

The parts of the bill that I want to concentrate on include those sections that deal with marine safety in relation to the oil industry. We had requested that aspects of Bill C-3 be broadened to include more comprehensive measures to safeguard Canada's coasts, certainly not packed into an omnibus bill. These comprehensive measures to safeguard Canada's coasts would have neutralized or reversed Conservative cuts and closures specific to marine and environmental safety.

The Conservative government rejected our proposal to broaden the scope of the bill. There is no surprise there. Not a single soul in this country wants to see an oil spill. New Democrats are obviously committed to ensuring that oil spills never happen, but the Conservative record is making it increasingly difficult to trust that the concerns of Canadians are being taken seriously.

Trust is another word like credibility. Trust and credibility should not be mentioned in the same sentence, in the same breath, as Conservatives. The bill is a thinly veiled attempt to compensate for previous inaction and Conservative cuts to marine safety.

There are measures to improve safety in the bill. The required pilotage and increased surveillance is a small step in the right direction. So are increased inspections of foreign tankers. However, those small steps are just that—small—compared to the risks associated with the closure of British Columbia's oil spill response centre, the shutting down of B.C.'s Kitsilano Coast Guard station, and the gutting of environmental emergency response programs.

Again, this legislation appears to be part of a concerted effort by the Conservatives to try to address their non-existent credibility in areas of transport safety, particularly concerning oil tanker traffic on the west coast and mounting opposition to the northern gateway pipeline.

The scaling back of Coast Guard rescue capacity and facilities is not just isolated to the B.C. coast. In my neck of the Canadian woods, the Canadian hinterland, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Conservatives have shut down the marine search and rescue centre in St. John's. We had a rescue coordinating centre with Coast Guard people who knew every nook and cranny of thousands of kilometres of coastline. The rescue centre was shipped out of Newfoundland and Labrador. That can only be described as negligent.

What would New Democrats like to see in this bill? What measures would New Democrats want to see in a bill to safeguard Canada's seas, to protect our people and protect our environment? In B.C., reverse Coast Guard closures. Cancel the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spill responders. In B.C. and Newfoundland and Labrador, cancel cuts to marine communication traffic centres, including the marine traffic control communications terminals in Vancouver and St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Reverse cuts to key environmental emergency programs, including oil spill response for Newfoundland and Labrador and B.C.

What other measures do New Democrats want to see in a bill to safeguard Canada's seas? How about reinforcing the capacity of petroleum boards to handle oil spills, as recommended by the environment commissioner? What capacity do petroleum boards, like the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, have to handle oil spills? The answer is none. It is non-existent.

The CNLOPB needs to build in-house expertise to manage a major oil spill, with the creation of an independent safety regulator. That was the chief recommendation of the Wells inquiry into the 2009 crash of Cougar flight 491 off my province's coast, a crash that killed 17 people. The chief recommendation was for the creation of an independent safety regulator. Where is that independent safety regulator? Where is it? It is nowhere to be seen.

There are problems with the offshore regulator, the CNLOPB, and the Conservatives are in no rush to fix them. The public's confidence in the CNLOPB was already shaken, following a string of political appointments as well as the board's failure, to date, to follow through on an independent safety regulator. Last winter, this country's environment commissioner released a report that revealed that the CNLOPB, the board responsible for regulating the offshore oil industry, is not prepared for a major offshore oil spill. If that is not a shocking combination that undermines what little public confidence remains, I do not know what is.

The CNLOPB has not yet completed an assessment of the oil spill response capabilities of the offshore operators, which are required to respond to spills, almost five years after that assessment began. The CNLOPB is not prepared to take over response to a major offshore oil spill if an operator fails to respond as required. In a nutshell, when it comes to environmental protection, the CNLOPB is failing us. The Conservative government is failing us.

If there were a major offshore oil spill tomorrow, the CNLOPB does not know whether the offshore oil companies would have the equipment or the resources to deal with it. The board itself would not be prepared to pick up the slack. What are we doing? What is the Conservative government doing? It is not doing enough. The Conservatives know this to be true. They know this to be true beyond the shadow of a doubt. We know this to be true, as sure as Conservatives have put safety and the environment in the back seat, behind its corporate agenda and corporate profits.

How do we know this to be true? We know this to be true because the Conservatives have refused to speak throughout much of this debate. The Conservative silence is deafening. Do we hear the voices of objection? No, we do not.

[Income Tax Act, October 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons. I want to thank the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain for tabling the bill in the House of Commons. I want to thank the hon. member on behalf of untold thousands, tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, Atlantic Canadians and Canadians in general who migrate for work across the country and around the world. I meet them at airports. I talk to them on airplanes. I knock on the doors of their families left behind.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a history of working away from home. Our forefathers worked on the Grand Banks and off the Labrador coast for months on end. They lived on wooden walls, the sealing ships, for weeks, when they were in the fat, when the seal hunt was in its prime.

In my riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl, on the top of Signal Hill, at the entrance to St. John's harbour, is a peak that is known as Ladies Lookout. Ladies Lookout is the very point where women gathered for generations to look for their men returning from sea after days, weeks, months and years. The wharf and lookout of yesterday is the airport of today.

So many Newfoundland and Labrador families live on a rotation: two weeks on, one week off; four weeks on, two weeks off. Long commutes and extended absences have been a way of life in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, the scale and intensity of the westward move to places like Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie and Lloydminster that began a few decades ago sets it apart from past experience. Let me quote from a recent article I read on the Newfoundland and Labrador migration: “Some call it a rite of passage. Some wives back home call it a fiscal blessing, but a blow to the heart”.

It is not just men who migrate for work; it is women too. It is our youth, our newly educated, bayman and townie alike. Leaving for work is a way of life, especially since the early 1990s when our fisheries collapsed. We have lost 90,000 people since then. One-sixth of our population left. They are gone. Untold thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians migrate for work on a weekly or monthly basis so that their families can live comfortably back home. It is how I grew up, personally, with my father away for six to nine months at a time. He worked on what was then known as the Distant Early Warning line across the north.

If one drives through the outports today in rural Newfoundland and Labrador one will see nice, new homes and nice vehicles. There is pride in property, but we've always seen that. My office has tried to research the amount of money that migrant Newfoundland and Labrador workers bring back with them. There are no accurate numbers, but I can say it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It is in the billions of dollars. According to Statistics Canada, the number of workers commuting from Atlantic Canada to Alberta increased threefold between 2004 and 2008. The median earning for oil and gas workers in Alberta who live out of province was just under $60,000 in 2009.

Bill C-201 would impact thousands of Atlantic Canadians and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The bill would allow tradespersons and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income. The bill would allow tradespeople to maintain employment on work sites that are more than 80 kilometres away. The bill would help migratory workers and migratory construction workers. There is no doubt that the bill would help workers in my riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl, in all of Newfoundland and Labrador and in Atlantic Canada.

Workers have to leave home. That is hard enough, but they should not have to foot the bill for travel and accommodation too. Under current rules, construction workers often incur large personal expenses to accept jobs in other parts of the province or country because neither travel nor accommodation expenses are tax deductible under the Income Tax Act. These costs create a huge disincentive for workers to accept work in other parts of the country that are experiencing skills shortages.

Figures suggest that the average mobile worker spends approximately $3,500 of his or her own money to temporarily relocate. That $3,500 is a significant barrier to the appeal of accepting jobs away from home. We have to make it easier and more enticing for skilled labourers in this country to fill labour shortages in other parts of the country.

How much will the bill cost? It is actually revenue neutral for the federal government, because the cost associated with the income tax cut is more than made up by savings in employment insurance. Instead of punishing Canadians who receive EI, we can start helping skilled labourers in this country by making it easier for them to accept work.

Let me throw out some numbers. There are an estimated 1.6 million construction workers in Canada, and 10% of them travel each year. At an average cost of $3,500 per worker, a 15% tax credit would cost the federal government $525 per mobile worker per year, for a total cost of $84 million. However, if the same number of 160,000 travelling skilled trades workers, which is 10% of 1.6 million, received average weekly employment insurance benefits of $393 per week, for an average period of unemployment of four weeks, the government would pay $250 million in EI benefits per year. That works out to $84 million from a tax cut versus $250 million in EI benefits. The tax credit proposed in the bill would result in net savings of more than $160 million a year.

The bill would not just help workers. The bill would help employers, because they would have larger pools of skilled workers across this country to draw from. They would not have to resort to hiring temporary foreign workers to get the jobs done.

The bill would also help Newfoundland and Labrador. We have huge projects on the horizon, such as Labrador's Muskrat Falls and offshore oil projects. We have had three new offshore oil discoveries within the past year off Newfoundland and Labrador.

Despite successive Conservative and Liberal governments making promises for years about helping migratory workers, there has been nothing done. In fact, this bill has been tabled in each Parliament since 2006. It was part of the New Democratic Party's platform in 2008 and 2011. Now we have the opportunity again to help migratory workers in this country.

The ask is simple. Allow our tradespeople and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable incomes so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their homes. It is that simple.

People in this mobile workforce maintain homes and families in communities across Canada, in Atlantic Canada, and in Newfoundland and Labrador while using personal funds to maintain employment.

Included in the tax credit would be the cost of travel, meals, and accommodation, less any money paid by the employer for those purposes.

To conclude, the bill makes sense for workers. The bill makes sense for families. The bill makes sense for employers. The bill makes sense for industry. The bill makes sense for taxpayers. The bill makes sense, period.

[Newfoundland and Labrador, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, coming from Newfoundland and Labrador, I love a good laugh, which is often found in the most unexpected of places. Take last week's Speech from the Throne, for example, and this little gem of a line, “Our Government has supported fishermen by ensuring proper management of fish stocks”. Yes, the best lines are always delivered with a straight face.

Today there is a demonstration in Grand Bank on Newfoundland's south coast over the closure of the Fisheries and Oceans office that was there for decades. Last month DFO shut down the library in St. John's. Proper management at DFO means eliminating whatever it is it manages.

How about this quote about the oil industry? “Our Government will...[s]et higher safety standards for companies operating offshore”. In that case, where is the independent safety regulator for the offshore oil industry? That was the number one recommendation from the Wells inquiry into the 2009 crash of Cougar Flight 491.

We do so love a good laugh, but not when the punchline is always Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Business of Supply, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. It is funny that because this debate is taking place today, we on this side, Her Majesty's official opposition, have been accused of not caring about the economy, not caring about a free trade agreement, not caring about this and not caring about that. Nothing can be further from the truth. We believe in a strong economy, justice for aboriginal women and an untold number of different issues for the country.

One of the fundamental principles of our country that this whole democracy is based on is that the House of Commons is the shape of our democracy, but the Senate with five u's has to go and should go. It does not mean that we care any less about the other major issues before our country right now.

[Business of Supply, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, as I thought I had clearly said in my speech, my party, the New Democratic Party of Canada, absolutely believes in the abolishment of the Senate. The chamber of sober second thought has five u's: unaccountable, unapologetic, under investigation, useless, the whole nine yards. However, changes may take some time and the changes that need to happen in terms of partisanship of the Senate should happen right now. We urge members on both sides of the House to follow our lead and make those changes right now.

[Business of Supply, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this year we had a by-election in Newfoundland and Labrador in the riding of Avalon. I went to Labrador to join it. As the member of Parliament for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, as a member of Parliament for Newfoundland and Labrador. I participated in meeting after meeting with community representatives and activists about a whole host of different issues in the riding of Avalon. This example is my example, but my main priority when I went to Labrador was to represent my party in that riding, and that is exactly what I did.