MR. CHAIRMAN: We have a quorum and so we will start. The other members will be joining us shortly. I am glad to welcome you here. People are here as observers as well. We are always delighted to have the media with us. Welcome. This is a topic which I am sure is of importance to all of us, because all of us, regardless of what political stripe we are from, are concerned about the safety of Nova Scotians. I know personally and I am sure I speak for all of you, none of us wants to see anybody go to bed worried about safety at the workplace the next day nor any mother or father or husband or wife worried about the safety of their loved ones.
We appreciate this opportunity. I am speaking particularly now to our invited guests, Kevin McNamara, James LeBlanc and Pat - with the lovely last name - Clahane. Welcome, we are glad that you are here. We know that you share this concern with us as well for offshore safety. The method we are going to follow is that we will have a short presentation from our witnesses. I understand there will be one presentation, Kevin will present and Jim will be back-up to him. Then we will follow the procedure of going around, starting with the Vice-Chairman of the committee, Don Downe. We will allow you to have one question and a supplemental, and then we will keep going around the table until the questions are finished or the time is up, one or the other.
Are there any questions before we start the hearings? As I said, welcome for this very important matter. Kevin, the floor is yours.
MR. KEVIN MCNAMARA: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, what we would like to do is a short presentation up front that will help to put in context what we are dealing with and also the process that we are putting in place to try to deal with this issue of offshore health and safety. When we look at it, we say what are the lessons that we have learned, what are the lessons that we are trying to put forward that we can use as we move forward?
There are really four issues. One is the Westray Inquiry Report, which many in this room are aware of, where 26 lives were lost. In that report, if you sum it up, there are a couple of things that come out of it. One was the adequacy of government program delivery and how that was done in the past; our failure to enforce the regulatory standards that were in place at that time; and there were outdated, inadequate laws that allowed us to move forward. Also coming out of that was an acceptable regulatory regime where we adopted the internal responsibility system.
If we move on to the Ocean Ranger, there were 84 lives lost. Out of that report, a number of things came forward as well. One was that it was recommended we maintain a single regulatory agency for the offshore; that they use memoranda of understanding to transfer resources from other line departments to that single regulatory agency; that safety must have co-equal status development in the regulatory agency and systems required to ensure regulatory compliance be put in place; that there be adequate expertise required, including for contracted services or reliance on other agencies and that there be penalties for non-compliance; and finally that there be provisions for employee input through representation on committees.
If we look at the Ocean Ranger, the task force that came out of it said: safety must be pervasive and a responsibility in the whole organization; there must be identified staff of a regulatory agency with specific safety responsibilities; there must be no authorization of oil or gas activity without agreement on safety; and that safety officials have no other duties. In other words, there must be a chief safety officer in place.
If we look at the fourth example that we are talking about, the Piper Alpha, 167 lives were lost in that instance. Again, what they said is that safety needs to be a tripartite to be effective, in other words involving all the parties; there must be a formal safety assessment required that focuses on hazard identification and assessment; that the operators be responsible for the preparation of a safety plan for that operation; that safety responsibility be moved to an agency whose only mandate is workplace safety; and training and competency of staff is of paramount importance.
If we look at the existing system, and maybe I should say that the Accord Act, which we are going to be talking about in a minute, in this province comes under the Petroleum Directorate. The Department of Labour is working with the Petroleum Directorate because of our expertise in occupational health and safety, to move this forward. The direct
accountability belongs with the Petroleum Directorate. In dealing with here, Natural Resources Canada is the federal agency responsible for the offshore. Provincially the Department of Natural Resources was responsible for the offshore, and in 1993 this was turned over to the Petroleum Directorate.
Both agencies, the Petroleum Directorate and NRCAN are the agencies that are responsible for the Accord Acts that have been passed since the late 1980's into the early 1990's. The Accord Act replaced the original Canada Offshore Lands Administration Act. The reason for both the Offshore Lands Administration Act and the Accord Act were to avoid debate of ownership of the resource and the potential court battles impacting the viability of the industry. In effect both the federal and provincial governments would claim ownership.
The body that was put in place or established under this was the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. This was established by mirror legislation at both levels of government to administer the regulatory environment to the offshore. I am going to ask Jim to talk to the next two slides which deal with the responsibilities of the federal government and the provincial government under these Accord Acts. Jim.
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: Just in terms of the point that Kevin identified, there is mirror legislation in place at the federal level and at the provincial level. From an operational point of view, the sections that are of particular note for the Occupational Health and Safety Division are identified at a federal level on the slide here, Section 157(2), which identifies that the social legislation of Nova Scotia applies and it identifies that this includes the Labour Standards Code, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Trade Union Act and the Workers' Compensation Board Act.
The section then goes on to identify in 157(3) that where regulations may be made under the Accord Act, the social legislation of the province does not apply. The authority is provided in Section 153 of the federal Accord Act to regulate in the area and it is defined as the area of safety. The legal opinion and the operational opinion in relation to these sections is that because the word may has been used, that where the authority has been provided under the Accord legislation to regulate, the province has no jurisdiction in those areas.
The mirror legislation that is in the provincial environment is again the Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act. In this piece of legislation, Section 149(3) indicates that the Occupational Health and Safety Act does not apply where the matter is provided for under Section 146(d)(m)(o) and (p) of the Act that existed prior to 1992 and under their current Accord Act in respect of occupational health and safety. Again Section 146 of that Act enables regulation in the area of safety and Section 149(4A) of the Act provides the Minister of Labour with authority to appoint a Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board inspector as an officer under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Although the legislation is not clear, we understand that there is a residual application of the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act and an indication of the ministerial authority to appoint an officer under the Occupational Health and Safety Act is certainly evidence of that. It appears that the provincial jurisdiction, at least at an operational perspective, is based on the facts of the situation so it would apply in the area of health but not in the area of safety.
MR. MCNAMARA: Thank you, Jim. In 1991, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Department of Labour, the Department of Natural Resources for the Province of Nova Scotia - at that time the department involved - and CNSOPB to ensure delivery of all program elements to the offshore. This Memorandum of Understanding also provided for the OSH administration by CNSOPB, and the Minister of Labour has appointed their inspector as an officer under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. This Memorandum of Understanding expresses the intent that service delivery standards will be acceptable to the Nova Scotia Department of Labour. The Memorandum of Understanding creates an ongoing process for addressing issues as they arise. Looking at the past, the Accord Acts and others with it, as well as the Memorandum of Understanding, have been used to deliver programming to the offshore. Operationally, the agencies involved have attempted to deliver the regime that they understood the legislation had intended to create.
The Department of Labour has maintained an oversight role in relation to the application of the laws that it administers. The CNSOPB has identified to the boards and agencies to which it reports that there was a need to address occupational health and safety laws applying to the offshore. The CNSOPB has identified the need to pass the Offshore Occupational Health and Safety Regulations since the early 1990's. There have been attempts by governments, past and present, to have the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations addressed, and this has been since 1993 with the Province of Nova Scotia. As early as 1993, the ministers and the government of the day were encouraging their counterparts to pass the Offshore Occupational Health and Safety Regulations and to address the concerns that were identified with legislation. Those included letters from the minister of the day, Jay Abbass, up to and including our current Premier.
If we look at the present, there is a recent commitment from the Government of Canada, from the Government of Newfoundland - because it is another partner involved in the offshore - and the Government of Nova Scotia to revise the Accord Act. Since late 1998 work has been under way to get agreement on revisions to the accord legislation; that means partners working behind the scenes. There has also been a commitment from the three governments to revise draft offshore safety and health regulations. Work on the regulations is under way. Revisions are being proposed to a draft that was produced in the early 1990's; the regulations, however, require adequate authority in the Accord Act to provide for their passage.
As we are moving forward in negotiations with the federal government and the Province of Newfoundland related to the offshore, Nova Scotia has taken a number of positions: one is to ensure that the occupational health and safety laws offshore are at least as good as onshore; and, secondly, that offshore occupational health and safety enforcement culture is similar to what is practised in the Province of Nova Scotia. We must have a separation of safety and production. Nova Scotia believes that employee rights must be protected: the right to know, the right to participate, the right to refuse and the right of protection from reprisals. These rights will be included in the revised Occupational Health and Safety Offshore Regulations and are fundamental to the occupational health and safety in Nova Scotia workplaces.
As we move forward there is agreement on content of the Act and regulations between Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the Government of Canada, and there is agreement on the administration and delivery of programming to the offshore; however the timetable to achieve this is based on constraints outside our ability to delivery. What I mean by that is that the federal government has to pass legislation. They advise us the earliest they can pass it is this fall, and the legislation, because it is mirror legislation, we both have to put it through our Legislatures roughly at the same time, so we will be moving forward in the fall as well. The regulations that are being worked on would follow and be passed some time after the Act is passed, because you can't have regulations without authority of having a new Accord Act.
Basically that is our quick presentation to you on where we are and where we are moving forward.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Kevin. We will start with Don Downe.
MR. DONALD DOWNE: Mr. Chairman, I thank the members for the presentation today, Kevin and the members of staff. The issue of having mirror legislation and having it done on a trilateral basis with Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the federal government is key, and trying to get all those players together and agree to the set of criteria. The criteria that is being looked at now for establishing that, Nova Scotia is happy with what they have seen at this point in time with regard to occupational health and safety concerns, safety offshore, and if we can implement the changes in legislation and regulations, offshore would be as good, if not better, than onshore. Is that your view?
MR. MCNAMARA: Perhaps I will start and Jim can add information to it. One of the things, as we move forward, is our intent to get the best of the regulations that are available, whether what is available under the Canada regulations or Nova Scotia regulations or under Newfoundland. So we hope it is best of the best as we move forward; that is our intent. When the Accord Act is passed and new regulations are in place, then we will be comfortable that there is a good system in place to protect the safety of employees. If you ask us today, we would say no we don't have that comfort.
MR. DOWNE: In the offshore, especially with the SOEP project that we are all watching, do you feel the safety activities that are presently in place and the criteria that they have established, themselves, as being equal to, less or more in regard to quality of safety for that particular project as we have currently onshore now?
MR. MCNAMARA: I am going to throw that question to Jim because he has more hands-on awareness.
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: I guess, from the perspective of existing conditions, we are not aware of any health and safety concerns that are not being addressed.
I think what we have identified what this process has started is that there are process problems, particularly in relation to the legislation and clarity, in terms of the jurisdiction that may make some outcomes unacceptable, I guess, from looking at it, both as a regulator or from the general public.
In terms of health and safety issues, the Memorandum of Understanding that was put in place in the early 1990's recognized the language that was in the Acts and tried to put together a mechanism to deal with any health and safety issues that would come forward.
MR. DOWNE: The individuals involved with the SOEP project, are they requesting to have a high standard of occupational health and safety standards established so that they, as well as everyone else, know what the rules are and go according to that?
MR. MCNAMARA: Sure. In terms of the project, the standards are, as I understand them, as high as they would be, in this operation, in any part of the world. It is administered through contract with the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board which is a little different than having a regulatory environment applying to them. The standards, in terms of the delivery of service and, I guess, the hazard assessment and evaluation, are in place with the project.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Can we come back in time, Don? I have been rather Trinitarian, allowing you three questions, rather than one, but there will be a chance to come back unless you have a follow-up.
Okay, would it be possible, please, if the questioners could speak out so the rest of us could hear clearly? There is a bit of road noise but we want to keep the windows open because it can get awfully stuffy.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. McNamara, as I understand, one significant difference between the regulations, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, that we have here in Nova Scotia versus the regulatory regime they have that is being administered by
CNSOPB, is the IRS mechanism that is built in - internal responsibility systems, for those who don't know what that means.
In short, had a situation arisen on one of the offshore platforms, where a worker felt that he or she was working in an unsafe environment, they would have, under Nova Scotia law, the right to refuse without reprisal, whereas, under the offshore regime, that opportunity is not afforded to a worker. Am I correct in that? If so, what measures have been taken to address that inequity?
MR. MCNAMARA: It is our understanding, through legal advice, if you take what presently exists, a worker does not have the legal right to refuse at the present time in the offshore. That is correct.
What we are doing for the future is that we hopefully, when we get through the end of the Accord Act, those things will be encompassed in the Act and the regulations so an individual will have the right. If you remember my presentation, there were four rights that Nova Scotia's position will be to enshrine those rights in the go-forward legislation.
MR. MACKINNON: My understanding, as well, is that - and, perhaps, I may be a little biased here because of past experience - for what it is, is that Nova Scotia's new Occupational Health and Safety Act is, perhaps, one of the most superior pieces of occupational health and safety legislation in the country, far superior to the regulatory process that SOEP or the CNSOPB is using.
My question would be, are our federal counterparts, our partners, as well with Newfoundland, prepared to accept many of the segments or the components of our Occupational Health and Safety Act to ensure that worker safety is first, not just safety, but making sure that accidents are preventable and that there is that IRS system built in? We seem to be hearing publicly that they are very accommodating, they want to comply and if you read the report on the investigations, they say that they have been very cooperative. But the bottom line is, legally, we weren't in a position to do anything in a very unfortunate death in that particular situation.
MR. MCNAMARA: Perhaps to answer part of it, and Jim can answer the other part. I can speak from the point of view of sitting on the steering committee that is meeting with the federal government and with the Government of Newfoundland. The Province of Newfoundland and ourselves have the same outcome that we expect at the end of the day, and that is to ensure that we have the best occupational health and safety regulations and laws for our employees that work offshore. I should say that we have been supported by the Government of Newfoundland in moving forward to get the Government of Canada to come onstream and to look at making changes to the Accord Act. So from that point of view, my belief in our initial meetings is that the federal government is of the same mind and there has been an adoption of the culture that we are trying to achieve. We don't have the words or the
Acts to say this is what it looks like right now because we are in the initial stages but from a cultural point of view, I would say, yes, there is a commitment from all three parties to move this forward.
Jim, do you want to talk about the IRS?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: Sure, maybe just a couple of other points to reiterate what Mr. McNamara has indicated. We are, as we draft the offshore safety and health regulations, taking the best from the three jurisdictions, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the federal jurisdiction, in terms of creating a draft. To this point in time, everybody is in agreement that that is the objective, and that is to put the best of the content from each of the jurisdictions in there.
In terms of the internal responsibility system, it certainly is my opinion that it is alive and well on the offshore and although it may not exist in a regulatory framework at this point in time, the operators and the contractors that work in the offshore understand their responsibilities in relation to occupational health and safety and do deliver on those.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Can I please remind both the questioners and the responders to speak out as clearly as possible. Eileen.
MS. EILEEN O'CONNELL: Mr. Chairman, I think the member to my right just asked this question. I think he just answered it but I would like to keep it simple. My understanding of the issue is that there was a jurisdictional difficulty. From reading about the Piper Alpha, for example, that was a similar difficulty in the late 1960's in that the regulatory body was an industry body and you needed some kind of regulation that was separate from that component. Do you know for sure and do you know clearly - and this was why I think the other member was asking and he was asking it provincially - do we know what the jurisdiction will be, is it going to be split federally/provincially, are certain things going to go to the Department of Labour and certain things stay with the federal government, is any of it going to stay with the Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and so on? I don't understand how that is going to evolve.
MR. MCNAMARA: Again, subject to what the negotiations will lead us to.
MS. O'CONNELL: Yes, I understand that.
MR. MCNAMARA: In talking about what we see as the best way to make this work, what we are dealing with is that yes, there is a jurisdictional issue. We understand, as we went through the Nordic Apollo, what it did, it clarified, I guess, in the minds of everybody what the Provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have been saying in advance, that we have a difficulty in being able to enforce certain parts if something happens. So this has been advocated by a number of governments over a number of years; it was trying to get an
agreement - because there are other parties to this - to say I agree, I will sign too and make the changes. The Nordic Apollo sort of brought it to a head for us in terms of raising the stakes, and unfortunately it was a death, but that death did create some good in the fact that this change is going forward because of it.
[1:30 p.m.]
Having said that, what is it going to look like in the future? What we are going to do is we are going to have, the Accord Act will allow that you have a set of regulations and, as Jim has indicated, those regulations will incorporate the best of Nova Scotia regulations, the Newfoundland regulations, and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations that are available to the federal government, to try to take the best of them, recognizing that they will not be exactly the same as what is in the Province of Nova Scotia, or the Government of Newfoundland, because there are certain things that are different when you are dealing with the offshore than you would with onshore.
One of the examples when we were talking about this the other day, Jim said to me if you think about it in terms of certain incidents in the offshore, part of the regulations would be how you get egress if something is going to occur. On land we might treat it differently, but you have to remember to maybe remove the workers is where you are going to put more of your emphasis than we would on an onshore basis. That is just to give you an example of how it may be treated differently.
Having said that, what is the best way, what Nova Scotia wants to ensure is that we have the four basic rights covered that I talked about up front. If we can get a commitment to that, if we can get a commitment that the culture that the new regulations will be enforced is similar to Nova Scotia, we cannot say exact, but similar to, then the recommendation that we would be putting forward is that the CNSOPB continue to be the ones that would carry out the full activities of occupational health and safety. Nova Scotia would not be involved in any way in doing it.
What we want to do is ensure there is one agency only that shows up on a rig, or whatever, it could be a ship, if they are connected, related to occupational health and safety. There will still be other bodies involved because Transport Canada is involved for certain things. The RCMP are involved if there is a serious death. So we are never going to avoid those things taking place. So moving forward is, if we can ensure that we are going to get a good regulation, if we can ensure that we are going to get the same type of culture of how it is done, then Nova Scotia will be satisfied with moving forward in that main. Does that answer your question?
MS. O'CONNELL: It certainly helps, but I think what I hear is that the Nova Scotia Department of Labour will not have any direct jurisdiction. Is that correct?
MR. MCNAMARA: That is our preference, but by the same token we are saying if we don't get the commitments to get the regulation that we need, that if it doesn't enshrine the rights that are there to protect those workers the same as it would onshore, if we don't get that commitment of the culture and that we can enshrine as much as possible, then we are prepared to do it. Our reason for not being the provider of first choice, you will say, well, okay, why is that? There are a number of reasons. It would mean a whole new expertise for us. We would have to go out and get the appropriate staff, go through a whole training regime, get to learn, even though we are involved there is still a different expertise when you move into new industries. We believe that some of that is already there with CNSOPB. If we can ensure that the appropriate protection is there for employees, we believe we can move forward this way.
MS. O'CONNELL: Is that one or two?
MR. CHAIRMAN: That is one and a follow-up.
MS. O'CONNELL: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I was remiss at the start to welcome the people who are sitting in for other members - Russell MacKinnon for Wayne Gaudet, Bill Estabrooks for Darrell Dexter, Jim DeWolfe for Tim Olive and David Hendsbee for Jon Carey. So welcome to the four of you. Bill, your question?
MR. WILLIAM ESTABROOKS: Mr. Chairman, I have one question each for Mr. LeBlanc and Mr. McNamara. I know it seems ironic with the anniversary of the Ocean Ranger, but I think it is appropriate that we learn from the Shawn Hatcher incident and I would like to congratulate a member of your staff, Mr. McNamara, and if I pronounce his name incorrectly, Kenneth Botari, Mr. Botari's report which was provided in advance in the package, and much appreciated, is certainly comprehensive. His recommendations and his findings on the Shawn Hatcher unfortunate tragedy are thorough.
Yet in the wake of that report Mr. Jim Dickey from the CNSOPB is quoted as saying that the board has the expertise, his board that is, to monitor safety in the offshore and that the Nova Scotia Department of Labour officials, ". . . don't understand the business.". I was wondering, what do you think of that comment?
MR. MCNAMARA: Obviously, we don't agree with the comment as it is portrayed there. One of the things I think that we want to talk about is that we do believe, for example, that the method that was used by the board is not the one that Nova Scotia would be pursuing. So if you go back to what I was talking about, if we had the appropriate regulations in place, the appropriate culture in place of how things were being done, we believe that how we would have done it in Nova Scotia is the same way that they would have done it.
Jim, do you want . . .
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: I can comment on that, if I could. In terms of the personal opinions that people have, they are certainly entitled to those. I think from my perspective as the administrator responsible for the Occupational Health and Safety Division, the expertise that our officers bring to work sites is really in the area of occupational health and safety and problem analysis and problem identification. Those are the skills that we bring. I thank you for the compliment that you paid our officer, because I think during the course of his investigation he used those health and safety skills to basically look at the problem and analyze both the causes and the contributing causes to that accident to come to the conclusions that he did, and that is the level of expertise that we can bring to those issues.
I think in terms of fairness to Mr. Dickey, our expertise and experience is generally not in offshore-related activity. We have officers with backgrounds in everything from health care to construction, and we do have people who have marine backgrounds, and we do have some rig experience within our staff, but generally our expertise is in the area of occupational health and safety.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. LeBlanc, Andrew Parker - I believe he is the board's manager of operations, safety and environment, whatever that term is - explains that he does not believe there should be prosecution because, as he said, general safety is best enhanced by focusing on continuous improvement rather than punishing acts of omission.
We have had a man just killed in the offshore. It is a tragedy for all involved. I am wondering, with your background in occupational health and safety, whether you have problems with the fact that, if you excuse the expression, "the horse is out of the barn," compliance to these many concerns is taken care of after the fact and, therefore, there is no need to prosecute. Mr. Botari says in his conclusion that prosecution is recommended. What do you think of Mr. Parker's comment?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: I guess from the perspective of the Occupational Health and Safety Division as a regulatory agency, we believe that there needs to be a balance between education and enforcement in terms of prosecution. We are trying to establish a reasonable balance between those two legitimate strategies, I guess, for obtaining compliance in the offshore. Normally when our officers are involved in accident investigation, or if some orders are not complied with, they will consider prosecution and we would prosecute on a file based for two reasons: specific deterrence to identify to an employer that there has been a violation of the laws and there is a penalty associated with that, and the second reason we would do it would be for general deterrence to demonstrate to the industry that there is a penalty associated with failing to comply with the requirements of the legislation. But there is a balance that is required between those two strategies to obtain compliance.
MR. MCNAMARA: If I could just add a supplementary comment to Mr. LeBlanc's comment. It is also my understanding that the CNSOPB could not have charged the same organization that we could have because under the Accord Act they don't have the right to deal with a contract that we may have had. So that is one of the other jurisdictional issues that we would have to work our way through, and with the new Act and regulations that will be allowed.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Jim, do you have a question?
MR. JAMES DEWOLFE: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think we will all agree that the safety of offshore workers is of paramount importance, but this issue has been dragging along for some time; I know it was ongoing when I worked for Natural Resources in years gone by. The previous government, albeit unsuccessfully, tried to get this accord opened up and get this issue on the floor again. Why do you think they were unsuccessful in their attempts to do that?
MR. MCNAMARA: That would be speculation on my part. The only thing I can say is that in their minds it probably wasn't driven to a high enough urgency to open it up. I think there is another fact to it, there is concern that by opening the Accord Act that either Nova Scotia or Newfoundland would want other amendments to the Accord Act that would benefit either province, and they were afraid of opening up for one issue, which is occupational health and safety, and have us try to slide other things in through the door.
MR. DEWOLFE: Mr. McNamara, when did you first receive notification that the federal government was in fact prepared to move forward with opening up the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord and address the concerns of workers?
MR. MCNAMARA: There was a letter from Minister Goodale to the Honourable Gordon Balser dated December 9, 1999, saying that they were agreeing to open the Accord Act to deal with occupational health and safety only.
MR. DEWOLFE: I have that letter here and I would like to table that if I might. It certainly indicates that the John Hamm Government moved swiftly on this issue to ensure the rights and protection of offshore workers.
MR. ESTABROOKS: We look forward to legislation in the spring session, Jim.
MR. DEWOLFE: Just as a follow-up, if I might, you have indicated, Mr. McNamara, that the preferred position of the province is that the CNSOPB be the single agency responsible for offshore safety, only if certain conditions are met and so on, to separate occupational health and safety responsibilities from the resource management responsibilities. I understand this is also the position that Newfoundland shares. But there are some concerns
that the CNSOPB does not take the occupational health and safety issues seriously enough. I am just wondering what your thoughts are on that?
MR. MCNAMARA: Again, we have had some initial meetings. One thing that CNSOPB has done in the last month is that they have separated the chief safety officer from being the chief operating officer. Jim Dickey is no longer the chief safety officer, there is another individual under him who is now the chief safety officer. That separation has occurred but as a policy only of the board. What we will be doing as we move forward is enshrining in the Accord Act that forever in the future there will be a separation of those two entities.
MR. DEWOLFE: Of course, I am now thinking of the Nordic Apollo deaths, and there were no prosecutions, and your own department certainly had indicated there were grounds for prosecutions.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We will have a chance to come back again. David.
MR. DAVID HENDSBEE: Mr. Chairman, in regard to the comments and the questions asked previously by my colleague, the question of written notification, the time it would take, I understand there was quite a bit of correspondence. We had our own minister, Gordon Balser write a letter to Minister Goodale on November 5th, acknowledging receipt of that letter of November 22nd. Not hearing a response, our own Premier wrote the Prime Minister on November 25th, then we finally got a response from Minister Goodale, which letter has been tabled, for December 9th. We finally get a letter from Prime Minister Jean Chretien to the Premier on January 5, 2000, that they are looking forward to remedying the situation at hand.
It must be noted that the government has been taking action to address this issue, but some of the changes that are being proposed by the province and by Minister Balser are quite consistent with the report in regard to the Ocean Ranger and the Harrison Task Force following up in Chapter 11 of the recommendations and conclusions. May I just quote Recommendations 86, 88 and 102, about the principle of a single-window approach that was adopted with the establishment of the Canadian Oil and Gas Lands Administration. It is recommended, "That Canada maintain the approach of a single regulatory agency, in concept and in practice, in exercising regulatory control over the MODUs and the varied aspects of their drilling operations including the standby role of vessels and the rescue role of helicopters under contract to industry.". That is Recommendation 86.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Is that spring legislation?
MR. HENDSBEE: I will get to that. Recommendation 88, "That a Safety Branch of co-equal status and under a senior manager be established within the single regulatory agency with responsibility, inter alia, for the development, application and monitoring of safety standards and for the analysis of safety data.".
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you have a question?
MR. HENDSBEE: Yes, I am getting to that, sir. In Recommendation 102, "That within the single regulatory agency there be developed a capable Inspection Service to assure compliance with regulatory requirements of performance and that inspectors, where necessary, be transferred to it from line departments or other government agencies.".
With that position being taken by the province, do you think that those concerns will be adequately addressed? They talk about cherry-picking from the best of all the accords out there within the other provinces; do you think our concerns will be suggested by the changes that are being proposed by this government?
MR. MCNAMARA: The changes that we believe are going forward would address those issues and be bang on with them.
MR. HENDSBEE: A follow-up to the concern by Mr. Estabrooks about the spring legislation, you talk about it having to be a mirror process. Is there a time-frame that you anticipate the federal government to get this through the House of Commons - because of the timeliness of us doing it at the same time as them or very close to one another, the time-frame for that - do you anticipate it will be this spring, this summer or next fall?
MR. MCNAMARA: Well it was our hope from a provincial basis to put it forward this spring. In meeting with the Department of Natural Resources federally and because of the systems they have to go through and the committees, they say the earliest they can have legislation ready is the end of summer which would mean a fall introduction for both of us. The reason we wouldn't want to move in advance of them, if we put a piece of legislation in place that is drafted based on our best guesses, then they come forward and make some changes, we would have to come back and make amendments in Nova Scotia and then again it would slow up the process. So what we want to do is make sure we have the best chance for success in moving this legislation forward. Their timetable is what we are going to have to live with unfortunately, so we are looking at a fall introduction.
MR. HENDSBEE: So we will have to wait for the feds?
MR. MCNAMARA: That is correct.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ron, do you have a question?
MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Mr. Chairman, I guess the only thing is - and it is not a question - as far as the Sable offshore, the whole project now has gone through the phase that it is pretty well built. It is up and running, the plant down there; the offshore part of it is going as well. The whole question of offshore safety is of great concern to me as well as the
residents of Guysborough County because we do have a number of people who work in that industry now. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have that.
If the changes are made in accordance with the direction currently being taken, in the future would the regulatory process be there to ensure that the emphasis of the review system is on the loss of an individual's life, rather than which regulatory body is responsible for the investigation?
MR. MCNAMARA: That is correct. The bottom line is we want to ensure that there is good offshore occupational health and safety protection for all employees, whether it is related to accidents or death. It is to put a system in place and to ensure there are regulations in place so that there would be less accidents and hopefully prevent a repeat of what happened to the unfortunate Mr. Hatcher.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill.
MR. WILLIAM DOOKS: Mr. Chairman, good afternoon. Just a quick question about workers' compensation. The employees who are working on the offshore now, are they covered by workers' compensation?
MR. MCNAMARA: Yes.
MR. DOOKS: What is the rate per 100 of assessment at this time?
MR. MCNAMARA: That I cannot answer. Again, the Workers' Compensation Board reports to the Minister of Labour, not the Department of Labour, so I wouldn't have those things at my fingertips.
MR. DOOKS: I am just a little concerned about the policing. When everything is put together and we would hope very quickly, indeed - so the federal government is involved, the provincial governments of both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are involved - who is actually going to police this and how are we going to determine that? Is it boundaries of which side the rigs should happen to be on, if it is in Newfoundland water? We have the controversy going on now, who owns what? I just have some concern about the policing of the whole project once in place.
MR. MCNAMARA: Each of the boards has specified boundaries - you can call it on the water or whatever - that they operate within. So as to the relation of Nova Scotia at the present time and the territory that is covered by CNSOPB, this is the area that we are talking about that would be for the regulations that Nova Scotia would be involved with. I should also say that there is a strong interest in the industry as well, that we have common regulations between what Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have, because they see themselves as sort of working in a larger territory but the same players are moving back and forth. The
more regulations that are different that we give people, the harder it is to ensure that people are going to follow what you are doing, because they have to remember what turf you are in and what you are doing, so it is a belief that if we can get a common regulation that is very strong, that will be the best for employees in both jurisdictions.
MR. DOOKS: So the industry is having an input in what is taking place right now, you said earlier, I believe, did you not? Are they in agreement with what is taking place? Industry, the owners of the offshore rigs, the money people?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: In terms of the draft regulations.
MR. DOOKS: Yes.
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: Basically at this point in time, the drafts are being developed within government so the three jurisdictions are putting together a draft document. There would be a period of consultation where we would go out to both employers and employees to get their input in terms of content.
MR. DOOKS: All polices and rules and regulations, if you enhance them, usually cost more money that's for sure. I am just concerned about the industry itself, what their contribution is to this new accord. So we will be collecting money from them through the Workers' Compensation Act; is that going to continue, how are we going to pay for the policing regardless if its federal, provincial or from Newfoundland? I just have some concerns.
MR. MCNAMARA: The CNSOPB agency is an agency of the federal government and the Province of Nova Scotia. It has two members who are appointed by the Province of Nova Scotia, two members appointed by the federal government and a chairman who is appointed jointly. That agency is funded by some money from both the federal and provincial government and money from the industry. So the industry would be contributing to this, no different than employers in the Province of Nova Scotia contributing to occupational health and safety onshore through the WCB fund, which comes from the accident fund back to cover the majority of occupational health and safety.
MR. DOOKS: I guess that answers the question, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Don, do you have a question?
MR. DOWNE: A couple of comments. Just to build on Bill's comments. Have you had any opposition from the offshore companies in establishing a high standard, accepting the provincial standards; are they opposing anything to do with sharpening up and making more stringent the whole health and safety or the whole regulatory regime with regard to health and safety offshore? Are they giving you a hard time on this or do they support a stronger set of
criteria and a single-window approach with one jurisdiction having the responsibility to administer it?
MR. MCNAMARA: I personally haven't heard or had any representation from the offshore opposing or supporting the standards. What we have had - well, we haven't had personally but we are aware that they have asked that there be one jurisdiction to deal with. They said, it doesn't matter who it is. I suppose they have supported the CNSOPB as being the agency, that's fair to say, but they have said they really want one agency to deal with, that they don't want to have to deal with a number of different jurisdictions, because they want to know what they can do and how they can do it. It is confusing for them as it is for us in trying to do this right now.
MR. DOWNE: You mentioned earlier, as we were hearing the platitudes from across the way, about how the government had changed its mind so quickly in the last couple of weeks or months to the opening of this legislation and I found that kind of interesting. I understand that Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have been lobbying Ottawa for a number of years and finally they have moved forward to allow that the new changes will actually be brought into federal-provincial legislation and regulations.
MR. MCNAMARA: That's correct.
MR. DOWNE: So Newfoundland has been lobbying for this and the province has been lobbying for this and this has been an ongoing process for quite some time.
MR. MCNAMARA: There has been a lobby. Nova Scotia has been the stronger lobbyer, it would be my opinion.
MR. DOWNE: Since 1993.
MR. MCNAMARA: That's correct.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you have a question, Russell?
MR. MACKINNON: Yes, Mr. Chairman. My question goes back to the area of expertise. I believe, Mr. McNamara, you indicated that there was a lack of expertise with the inspectors, that there is a different type of expertise - and that the CNSOB (Laughter) The CNSOPB. A bunch of letters out of the alphabet, let's put it that way. I have to be careful.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Watch those jokes, Russell.
MR. MACKINNON: They can be troublesome, Mr. Chairman, as you are aware of. (Interruption) I am just praying. But you made the suggestion that there is a different degree of expertise and that the offshore board would have the greater ability to regulate this process
than the Department of Labour, Occupational Health and Safety, because our Act and our officers are trained more on occupational health and safety on-land-type issues. What is the benefit of trying to have some of the aspects of our legislation included in theirs if we really don't seem to have the expertise even to regulate it? How can we put input into something if we are admitting up front that we don't have expertise and yet we say that we have the best legislation in the country?
MR. MCNAMARA: I am not exactly sure those were my words so I will try again to say what I want to say. Basically what I said is if we were going to take this on as part of the Department of Labour we have to, one, get additional staff and ensure that they got the appropriate training to do it. To get training may mean sending those people to other jurisdictions where this is in place. This is no different than many of the other activities that may take place in the department, for example, as some of our new equipment is coming out as it relates to boilers and this type of thing, we send staff to other jurisdictions, to Scotland, to learn how that equipment is being used and then they come back here and, of course, would then be able to do it. So what it means is that we have to go through the training exercises. It would be no different than, can we do it? Yes, we can. Our preference is that it be left with a single agency, which is the CNSOPB. They have a history of having some of that knowledge to start with.
We also believe if we look at the numerous reports that come out, we think it can be done by them appropriately, if the right safeguards are in place to ensure that the individuals get the protection of occupational health and safety.
MR. MACKINNON: I guess it is not what you are saying, Mr. McNamara, it is what you are not saying that I have a problem with. What I have a problem with is with all the suggestions about who made petition to this jurisdiction or that federal body or provincial government or whatever, but at no point in time have I heard anything, any correspondence that has been tabled here today, with regard to the Minister of Labour making representation. Which leads me to believe, if the rumours are correct, that occupational health and safety training is going to be transferred over to the Workers' Compensation Board. The funding of this regulatory regime is a tripartite funding arrangement on the offshore, if I interpret your comments correctly, there seems to be little control over in terms of enforcement point of view.
We have the death of an individual, you have admitted that the regulatory regime in place now has no provision that would have allowed for prosecution and yet we have a regulatory regime that provides for that and we are prepared to make some trade-offs to allow this offshore jurisdiction to take control of that. The training aspect, you say we are going to start sending them to other jurisdictions, it comes down to an issue of funding and making sure that our workers are protected. If we are going to be paying for it through the Workers' Compensation Act or whatever process is in place, through the Department of Labour not through the Department of Economic Development, should there not be a
delineation of responsibility there? Why is the Minister of Economic Development taking a proactive role on these very issues and not the Minister of Labour? That's what concerns me. It is not what is being said, it is what is not being said.
MR. MCNAMARA: I can't answer all your questions but what I will do is talk about what I do know. One is that under the existing Accord Act - it is under the Petroleum Directorate, it is not under the Department of Labour - the Petroleum Directorate has said to us, as we are moving forward and dealing with Natural Resources Canada and the Government of Newfoundland we needed assistance from the department that does have expertise on occupational health and safety and that is why Jim, Pat and I have been involved and that is why we are here today, otherwise you would have the Petroleum Directorate, I assume as your witnesses, rather than us.
We are working with the Petroleum Directorate to move this forward the same as we work with other departments depending on the issue or they may work together. So we are there as providing support to the department that has accountability under the Accord Act that has been in place for many years. I don't know if it answers all of your question.
[2:00 p.m.]
MR. MACKINNON: Not all of it, no.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You may have time to come back. Eileen, do you have a question?
MS. O'CONNELL: Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned what I wanted to talk about which is funding. I was reading the package that we were given and I was reading about the Piper Alpha disaster, explosion, and one newspaper article reports that the resulting inquiry chaired by Lord Cullen led to a complete overhaul of the regulatory system in Great Britain and the establishment of a completely independent agency to oversee offshore safety.
My question is about the independence of the agency. You have made it plain that it is going to continue to rest with what my friend to the right calls the SOB, but I am looking at Dean Jobb's article from December 18, 1999, about the huge sums of money that come from industry to the Offshore Petroleum Board and the numbers are there in 1998-99. The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board received $744,000 in the 1998-99 fiscal year; 35 per cent of its $2.5 million operating budget from the two firms operating in the Sable gas area.
I guess I don't understand how we can say here in Nova Scotia that that regime should remain. Presumably, and you can answer this for me maybe, are these firms going to continue to provide substantial sums of funding and why is it that simply taking one job away from Jim Dickey would make any difference to this? I don't understand that and I also find that, because we don't have legislation in front of us, to some extent we are boxing shadows
in this whole discussion. Presumably we will come again soon, but not soon enough. I read the reports. I read the Offshore Petroleum Board's report on the accident and I read the Department of Labour's and there is a difference. It was the Department of Labour that more strongly emphasized the deficiencies and recommended that prosecution be explored.
Having done that, how can you then turn around and say we are giving it back to these people no matter what you put into place and, frankly, that is where I am stuck. So can you can enlighten me?
MR. MCNAMARA: I will do my best. From a provincial point of view, what we want to do is, and I keep coming back to the key things, can we get those enshrined in the Accord Act and the regulations? If the answer is no, then we come back and say, okay, we, Nova Scotia, are going to take that on as a province and do that and go through the necessary training and all the things that go with it if we can get, again, the other partners to sign on. At a certain point if they say, well, unfortunately, we don't agree with you, we are just going to walk away from it, we are left where we are now and that isn't acceptable either. So what we are doing, we are trying to work with two other jurisdictions to try to get what we can say is the best way to protect the rights of employees and the occupational health and safety for those employees. That is number one. So there are different ways of getting there.
It would be, for example, in the case of, if we say Nova Scotia is going to do it and Newfoundland is going to say we are going to have to do it in our Department of Labour as well, it would probably be one of the other outcomes. In Newfoundland they have a different board. Their position at the present time is that the board is the appropriate place for that as well as we are moving forward. That is part of what we are dealing with. It is a negotiating aspect. So what we want to do is ensure that we can enshrine certain rights in the Accord Act and regulations that will give that protection so that if this same event occurs in the future, they will be treated the same way.
Let me see if I can think of an analogy. Let's take the Criminal Code of Canada. The police in Toronto would take it one way. The police in Halifax, hopefully, would go the same way. That is what we are trying to end up with. The end result is that whatever you are working with that people will enforce it the way it is intended. First we have to get the legislation in place and the regulations behind it that will give that protection there. If you use the existing Act and the existing regulations, well, they are draft regulations and we are working by the goodwill in a lot of ways by the companies and those working in the offshore as it relates to many of the things that they are doing. What we want to do is make sure we have that enshrined so we can have something happen.
It is my belief, and you talk about the separation or the funding, let me try to address those very quickly as well. If we take the occupational health and safety, which is in my department, 82 per cent of the funds for that come from the accident fund at the Workers' Compensation Board which is funded by employers in this province. Number two is that Jim,
as the Executive Director of Occupational Health and Safety, and his staff report to me for operational reasons, but when it gets down to dealing with laying charges, to dealing with those types of offences, he has complete independence to do it and, in fact, I am sure if I suggested to him something different, he would tell me where to go and it is not a place I would want to be, but I am serious about that. You can have that independence within the same organization as long as you have somebody who is accountable for it, somebody who has the right to make that decision and the authority to do so.
The problem within the CNSOPB is that they haven't had that separation and they haven't had that individual authority. We are going to enshrine in the new Act that they will have that so they can act independently even though they are part of the same organization. That may help a little bit in trying to explain the philosophy we are coming from.
MS. O'CONNELL: It does, thank you, but will the industry continue to fund the board?
MR. MCNAMARA: You would have to ask the Petroleum Directorate that question. I cannot answer that.
MS. O'CONNELL: If it does, would that bother you?
MR. MCNAMARA: Not as long as we have the protections in place to ensure that it goes forward in the way to protect employees.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. Chairman, it concerns me, the flow of this conversation and the jurisdictional paper trail or the turf war that I see, or that I have heard about in the past and workers in the offshore who I have heard from personally in the last month. I think this should be very clear. The Westray recommendation comes out very clearly. Judge Richard, to his credit, in concluding, Recommendation 52 - and I have it here - points out that there has to be a clear delineation between the regulator and the promoter and that cozy sort of relationship that, unfortunately, was happening at that time in Pictou, that can never happen again.
It concerns me that CNSOPB has that cozy sort of relationship as a promoter and as a regulator. Either of you, I am interested in your opinion on whether CNSOPB should be both the regulator and the promoter and is there not a necessity to have a more arm's-length approach to occupational health and safety in the offshore?
MR. MCNAMARA: It is my belief that they are the regulator. The promoter is the Petroleum Directorate for the Province of Nova Scotia.
MR. ESTABROOKS: If I may interrupt, that is a hand and glove sort of distinction which particularly doesn't help when a worker has a concern in the offshore. I understand the Petroleum Directorate and I understand - well, I think I do - I have seen the flow chart anyway, but if I can go on, Mr. Chairman, if I may.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Based upon Westray and based upon some of the incidents in the offshore, some that we know about, some that you provided in the overheads and so on, and other ones that are brought to our attention as MLAs, you know, people fired. You go down that blankety-blank gangplank and you never come back if you make one more complaint about safety out here. Those things are being said and reported. That particular gentleman who is a constituent of mine brought that forward. He eventually sued for the fact that he was fired and won. He is driving a hack in this city today and he cannot get a job on the offshore because he has been, in his opinion, blacklisted. I think the courts agree with that because the Petroleum Board is calling all the shots.
I have to go to this and I would like your opinion, Mr. LeBlanc, if you would please, or Mr. McNamara, but Mr. LeBlanc, in your opinion, based upon the experience that we have gone through and it has been said that offshore safety should be in the hands of the toughest regulator, is the CNSOPB the toughest regulator when it comes to applying offshore safety?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: That is a real difficult question for me to answer because if I had sat here in 1992 or 1993, that criticism could have been levelled at the Department of Labour in terms of the adequacy of our ability to administer and enforce our regulations in the province. I don't think there is any organization that can't put what is required in place to put in an effective regime to deliver occupational health and safety to workplaces in the province. My answer is that there is an ability to create sufficient separation within an organization or between organizations to allow the stuff to be done well.
If we go back to some of the principles that the province has identified in this negotiation that is going on between the three levels of government, we want a similar enforcement culture relative to occupational health and safety to ensure our buy-in to the process. If we can reach those objectives, I think we can do it.
MR. ESTABROOKS: We being who, sir?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: We in terms of the Department of Labour agreeing to see the board administer the occupational health and safety regulations.
MR. DEWOLFE: I will just pass right now. I think I asked four questions the first time, so I will come back.
MR. HENDSBEE: Mr. Chairman, further to the comments of Mr. Downe, amendments are for the purpose of enhancing legislation that is presently on the books. Even in your slide you say that the test by governments past and present to have occupational health and safety addressed from 1993 to 1999, six years of lobbying for changes for amendments, those amendments are there to make corrections for the imperfections or loopholes or shortcoming or flaws in the legislation.
When did these, what I call defaults in legislation, become apparent, and what did your departments, or the government of the day, do to address those deficiencies in legislation and keeping in contact when the fatality occurred? Can you tell me the time-frame in regard to when these things became apparent, what was being done to address those concerns to the present day?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: I can certainly do some of it. In terms of the deficiencies that were identified or the wording problems that were identified in the accord legislation, they were identified fairly early on and the Memorandum of Understanding was put in place between the Department of Labour and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board in 1991 to ensure that we could create, as much as possible, a seamless delivery of occupational health and safety legislation and programs to the offshore. That really was the start of the process.
The introduction of the MOU and the identification that revisions were required to the draft offshore occupational health and safety regulations that existed in 1990 and changes to the accord legislation to ensure that they were enabled. I think over that time, in the intervening years, there was a lot of discussion in terms of whether or not the fix to this particular situation was doable by regulation or if there were administrative practices that would not have required the opening of the Accord Act. It has really been an ongoing discussion since those early days to try to find the best solution to put in place.
MR. HENDSBEE: So it took a situation such as a fatality to make the governments more reactive instead of proactive in trying to get the changes rushed through or brought up to speed or brought up to date?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: I guess I would say it has focused a lot of attention on the issue.
MR. HENDSBEE: My last question would be, in regard to this correction to legislation, hopefully the concerns of the workers or perhaps the respect of the victims, if there should be any more in the future, would this legislation be more focused on their concerns and needs versus the jurisdiction of process and clarification of process; who is responsible for what?
MR. MCNAMARA: I think it is fair to say once we can get the jurisdictional issue clarified through the accord and get a process in place, then we get into the regulations as Jim mentioned earlier, we would go through a process of going out for consultation to employees as well as employers to get their input. It would sort of address some of the issues raised on this side of the room. How do the employees' concerns get addressed through this whole thing? There is a buy-in, hopefully from employees and employers, to come up with a good regulation that will ensure the protection of all at the end of the day.
MR. DOWNE: It was interesting listening to my colleague up the row here (Interruption) Extreme left, yes. The concern about the fact that somebody is actually paying so that we have money to be able to develop the program, and one way saying that big business should be paying and in the next minute when they do pay, well, they are contaminating a process. My question to you is, have you ever seen CNSOPB contaminated because of private sector investment in funding that particular Crown organization?
MR. MCNAMARA: My experience with them is very limited. In this issue there has been nothing to suggest that to me, but again it is a very peripheral involvement to date with them.
MR. DOWNE: I really haven't noticed any of that myself. I just found it kind of intriguing. As a taxpayer I would rather have somebody else pay it than having the taxes go up, if we can maintain the integrity. That is the question that you are asking, that we are all asking, we want to have that solid piece of integrity in the legislation at the highest possible standard for the safety and health of our employees. That is the name of the game, that is what we are all fighting for and that is what we are determined to try to find a solution to.
It seems like there is a shadow of questions in the questioning here today, there is a shadow about the safety of the offshore. Gosh only knows none of us want accidents happening whether it is on a farm or in a manufacturing outlet or anywhere in this province where employees work. Can you tell me from what you know in the Sable gas project, right behind you is a map of what is going on, can you tell me how they have done in regard to the health and safety of their employees and of the fabricators and the developers and so on and so forth, what is their track record to date?
MR. JAMES LEBLANC: Probably the closest I could come in terms of trying to provide a measure of success or a measure of performance in the area of occupational health and safety is two numbers related to lost-time accident experience in the offshore and the average shore-based facilities or operations. It is statistically based so there are all kinds of assumptions that are in here and I won't bore you with the qualifiers but in general terms, I understand the lost-time accident rate in the offshore to be about 2 lost-time accidents per 100 employees. On shore-based activity, and this is just generally across the board for employers in the province, it is between two and three. On average, they are probably a little better than average.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Russell, do you have a question?
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, yes, I do. I want to go back to this issue of occupational health and safety, the inspection and the training component of the Occupational Health and Safety Division within the Department of Labour. For those who may not be aware, the Occupational Health and Safety Division within the Department of Labour presently comprises approximately 60 per cent of the total budget, am I correct? So, according to the Tory blue book, that division will be transferred over to the Workers' Compensation Board, you will exist in 40 per cent of your present form.
I am trying to follow this pattern of mindset that the present administration has in terms of its independence to be able to regulate and enforce a safety regime as opposed to meeting the objectives of the economy and assisting a good, healthy environment for employers to operate. Any which way I turn on this, as convoluted as my presentation may seem here, it all goes back to the Minister of Economic Development who seems to be taking the lead role here.
Last year the Minister of Economic Development, who was then a backbencher, introduced a piece of legislation to provide exemption for employers so they wouldn't have to adhere to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and now we have the same individual who is deemed the lead agent in transferring this responsibility. I am concerned about t
