Natural Resources committee  If I add to that step, the regulation-making authority would require that any change or definition would be made public and that there would be an opportunity for any interested party to comment on the regulations that are being proposed by both governments. Therefore, the regulations being made would go through two public processes.

Natural Resources committee  I'm sorry, were you looking for further information from e-mails?

Natural Resources committee  On Wells' recommendation 29, the boards and the government have moved forward with structuring the boards and the responsibilities so that safety remains a priority. I've spoken to the role of the chief safety officer, some of the authorities the safety officer has, some of the design of the unit within the board itself, and certainly, the conflict that has been suggested here is one that doesn't exist in practice.

Natural Resources committee  We have a regular dialogue with our colleagues in the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, with the offshore boards, and with the regulatory community globally. We address the issues and try to move forward with health and safety issues around the workplace to make sure that it remains a priority.

Natural Resources committee  I'll start and then I'll pass it on to my colleagues. First, it is a safe workplace. Efforts are made every day by the workers, the boards, and the operators. The operators have responsibility for their workers and they take those responsibilities extremely seriously, as any good employer would.

Natural Resources committee  About being informed, anybody who gets on an aircraft heading to one of those platforms has to go through a mandatory training program before getting on the helicopter or the boat, even visitors. If you and I go as visitors, we will go through a mandatory briefing before we even get on the vehicle.

Natural Resources committee  Even more so, there's an expectation that it's part of your responsibility. The responsibilities don't fall only to the operator, only to the board; they fall to the worker, to the worker's union, his labour group, to all of the parties who visit the platform. It's everyone's responsibility.

Natural Resources committee  I think the challenge here would be to address the uniqueness of the legislative frame of shared management and the mirroring of the legislation, and the requirement that there are certain distinction points, as I pointed out. As a person steps on a helicopter, they're under the authority, in this instance, of more than one minister of the crown, whether that's the provincial context or whether it's the federal context.

Natural Resources committee  The regulation is actually made, and it's clear and it spells it out. The different ministers who have authority to have input on that regulation depends on the expertise. I don't think that's significantly different from other workplaces of this nature across the country. I'll grant that it's actually a little bit more complicated in the offshore because we have the added element of the provincial and federal marrying together, but certainly the effort here is to try to clarify.

Natural Resources committee  The decision-maker is the offshore board. There's only one in each jurisdiction. The regulations that are established to provide the authority of the offshore board are mirrored in both the federal jurisdiction and the provincial jurisdiction. There's the federal process and a provincial process, but the board is provided the authority to make the decisions.

Natural Resources committee  The response is to your question of who the workers deal with when they express a concern about a situation that they don't think is safe.

Natural Resources committee  Well, I would certainly say there are certain countries that do offshore and have what appear to be less stringent regulations and regimes, but for the most part, there is sometimes a lack of transparency and specificity in their regimes, such as, for example, Nigeria and some of the countries that are producing offshore.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Workers may refuse to step onto an aircraft or a ship and be transited to work if they feel that it's unsafe.

Natural Resources committee  Of the top countries in the world.

Natural Resources committee  Well, we're enshrining that in law. It's certainly a practice that if there are concerns, there are committees now that look at these issues and ensure that there's a regular dialogue about the length of the flights. There is a high order of scrutiny, if you will, given the tragedy that occurred, so it's now being written into the statute as it's proposed.