Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand today to speak to this particular piece of legislation. We are talking about the offshore, and there is so much happening offshore of Newfoundland and Labrador right now. It has been one of the major things that has contributed to our economy over the last 10 to 15 years. There is more and more happening in the offshore.
We are fortunate enough to have this resource off the coastline; we are using it to our benefit and are seeing the benefits from it. However, when there is any sort of employment offshore or on the water, there are risks involved, and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are no strangers to the risks involved with working offshore and in hostile environments. They do so knowing that government is there to protect them if something goes wrong and that government and industry are there to move things forward in a proactive manner to ensure workers' rights are protected, whether it is the fishery or offshore oil.
The benefits are really being seen in Newfoundland and Labrador now from the offshore developments. In particular, in the riding I represent there are two more developments on the horizon. Hebron is being built in Bull Arm in my riding, again another offshore development, and the west White Rose extension GBS is going to be built in Argentia, also in the riding of Avalon. People are really pleased to see the offshore being further developed. However, they are no strangers to the accidents that happen when they are working in this environment. We remember the Ocean Ranger disaster of many years ago and the number of lives that were lost. It is something always close to our minds and hearts.
More recently, there was the Cougar flight 491 on March 12, 2009, shortly after my election to this place. We had to deal with that. There were 17 victims in that particular crash, whom we remember. They were ordinary people who got up in the morning to go to work and did not come home. Of those 17 victims, five were from my riding: Gary Corbett from Conception Bay South, Wade Duggan from Witless Bay, Derrick Mullowney from Bay Bulls, Paul Pike from Shearstown and Allison Maher from Aquaforte. We remember the workers who went to work that day and did not come home. That is where we are today with this piece of legislation.
The Wells inquiry had 29 recommendations to try to protect and enhance safety in the offshore, and many of the recommendations have been dealt with by industry and the C-NLOPB so that accidents do not happen again. Recently, I had an opportunity to tour Cougar Helicopters' operations in St. John's and speak to representatives about their search and rescue capabilities and how they have managed to implement some of the recommendations from the Wells inquiry, one of which is wheels up in 20 minutes. The Cougar employees work search and rescue 24/7, 365 days a year. They are very proud of what they do and that they are there to protect workers in the offshore. They have the technology and capability to perform search and rescue. This is solely for the offshore oil. This search and rescue is only contracted by the oil companies.
Then there are the men and women at CFB Gander and the search and rescue squadron there that supplements the search and rescue capabilities for the offshore. It is somewhat limited in its response times after hours, and it is something that the government needs to move forward.
Another aspect of the offshore that impacts Newfoundland and Labrador, particularly in my riding, is that all this production of offshore oil has to go somewhere. The majority is shipped in supertankers down to the eastern seaboard or into New Brunswick to be refined, but a lot of it goes in through Placentia Bay and into the transshipment facility there, next to Arnold's Cove and Come By Chance.
A lot of people do not realize that Placentia Bay is the busiest seaway in all of Canada. Yes, we have the St. Lawrence, which is busy in traffic and the number of ships, but St. Mary's Bay actually has the highest tonnage of traffic in all of Canada. It is something we have to be very mindful of, because it is not a matter of whether there is going to be an accident, but a matter of when.
Accidents do happen. This is where we need to be more prepared to get in there and respond. That is where government, working with industry, needs to come together and be ready to go. The Coast Guard needs to pull up its game. A number of reports have come forward saying the Coast Guard does not have the ability and response time for a major oil spill in Placentia Bay. Industry is also tasked with an oil spill response time, and it must continue that preparedness and have the resources, supplemented by the Coast Guard.
Getting back to the bill at hand, it is the first update of this legislation in over 20 years. We have been working in the offshore of Newfoundland for more than 20 years. It started with the first development, with Hibernia and all of the exploration that happened around that. This is really the first update in the last 20 years of this particular piece of legislation. It deals with occupational health and safety and the frameworks around that. It recognizes workers in transit for the first time, those workers who travel via helicopter to the offshore production rigs, as well as the offshore exploratory rigs. There is a lot of exploration going on off the east coast.
We need to make sure our workers are protected, and we will support this piece of legislation because it does update the necessary aspects. The only problem is that this law is somewhat behind the times. Most of what is recommended in this legislation is already in practice right now because of the Wells inquiry and the C-NLOPB. A lot of this has already been done. It is not something that requires industry to do a whole lot more, because it is doing it anyway. No flights in bad weather, unsafe seas, and having new immersion suits and breathing apparatus are practices that are already in place right now. This legislation does not really do anything to enhance the protection of workers; it just implements what is actually current practice.
I know we sometimes criticize people for the sake of criticizing, but I also like to give credit where credit is due. I know from my conversations with the C-NLOPB, the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, that the people there do take occupational health and safety and the safety of workers very seriously. They have the tools to make sure the oil companies are abiding by the rules. They have the tools to go offshore and go on these vessels and production facilities to make sure that occupational health and safety are number one.
We can always do better. This is where this piece of legislation falls short. It has been two years since the Wells inquiry, since the final chapter of the report of the Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry phase II came into play and the response from the C-NLOPB. It was August 15, 2011.
Two years have gone by, and the government has not seen the need to implement a few of the recommendations. Those recommendations have been spoken about today. I will re-highlight two aspects of the recommendations that came forward and on which the government has not acted.
It would have been a pleasure to come here today and say the government has acted upon all the recommendations from Justice Wells. It was a very substantial piece of work. However, one of the recommendations that the government has not acted upon is the 30-minute run-dry capability. One of the key recommendations from the Transportation Safety Board when it did its reports and analysis of the Cougar flight 491 crash was this run-dry capability. It is an issue that has been identified on this particular helicopter, and it is something that needs to be implemented in regulation. These helicopters that are travelling offshore need to have this capability.
As we move forward, we are going further east and further offshore to do exploration. We are going further north off the coast of Labrador. These helicopters only have a certain range at the best of times. A couple of the Cougar helicopters that we saw have internal fuel tanks to make sure they have that range.
Now that we are continuing further east and further north, we need to make sure that if something happens, the helicopters do have a 30-minute run time, so they can get low, get to the coast, and land safely without incident.
This is one key recommendation that Justice Wells made that has not been acted upon.
The other key recommendation that was made, which was also mentioned earlier, is recommendation number 29, and that is the focus on a separate offshore regulator for safety. This was a key recommendation from Justice Wells that needed to be done.
The C-NLOPB does do good work; it is safety conscious. However, one of the checks and balances between industry and the petroleum board would have been an offshore independent safety regulator.
This is a key recommendation. The government has had two years to think about this recommendation. Some of the families of the victims of the Cougar crash have said the government has come up short and has not looked at these two key recommendations. That is something that should have been incorporated into the bill, but it was not.
The government has not gone far enough. It has only gone up to where the industry and the offshore companies are right now. They have not done anything beyond their capabilities.
That is something that needed to be done, and the bill falls short.
We will be supporting this piece of legislation and calling upon the government to go even further in promoting and securing the safety of the employees and our loved ones who go offshore. Many of them work very long hours and spend large amounts of time away from home. I have personal friends who have suffered a lot of stress. I have neighbours who work offshore and who travel a lot. It is a hostile environment. It is very nerve-racking to get on that helicopter. A lot of people have some stress and anxiety when travelling to the offshore. They need to know that they are in the safest helicopters, that they have the safest equipment, that their government is there to protect them if something goes wrong, and that industry is there to search for them and rescue them if something goes wrong.
Sometimes the government needs to step up to the plate and push industry and the regulatory board to do more. This is a case where the government has only come to where it is right now. As we start going further east and north, as I said earlier, it is important that we do look at it.
The bill does a little bit. It crosses over many jurisdictions, such as labour, health, transport, and intergovernmental affairs. There are many aspects to this situation. This is just one piece of the offshore in Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia, because it applies to both offshore petroleum boards.
