MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Environment allowed us to review environmental assessment documents in her office related to AbitibiBowater sites in the Province. We were advised that we could take notes but not make photocopies. Meanwhile, the courts in Quebec released these documents publicly for people in the country to view. Certainly a contrast, I say, to openness and accountability when the minister and her government refuses to issue the information in the Province but we can pick them up on the Internet, Mr. Speaker, once they have been posted by the Quebec courts.

I ask the minister: Why were these environmental reports that were in your possession since last fall outlining significant environmental concerns not released? Why were they kept hidden in your department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Obviously, the way Quebec operates in their laws and the way we operate are different, Mr. Speaker. Here we have ATIPP laws that we have to abide by, so we have to redact people’s names.

I told the Leader of the Opposition - in fact, I went over and offered to her one day sitting in the House that they could come over. I, in fact, said you can photocopy items but you cannot photocopy items with names on it, and that is why I had somebody from the ATIPP office in the office with them at the time. That is the offer that I made to you at that time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker

We were instructed not to photocopy anything; I want to clarify for the minister. The other piece of this, Mr. Speaker, is that the documents that they did finally give us was blacked out as opposed to the ones we obtained through the Web site and posted by the court in Quebec which contained all the contents and all the information.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister to tell us why she had those environmental documents in her possession since last fall but yet did not release them to the public? That is the question I would like to have answered, minister.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, again, we have laws in this Province and we abide by those laws. Quebec may have something different, and obviously we have seen over the past that they act very differently than we do here in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker.

When we had these reports done, Mr. Speaker, if there was anything that was identified as an immediate human health and safety issue we acted immediately. Look at the case in Buchans, Mr. Speaker. We went out there, we talked to the people, and we put the information on the Web site. All of these other reports are what you would normally see in any industrial site. There was no issue of a concern for the residents in those communities. Mr. Speaker, if there had been, we would have done the exact same thing we did in Buchans.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not know how the minister can judge the fact that there is no concern in these communities when these communities did not even know these reports existed or the information contained in them.

Mr. Speaker, last week when I questioned the minister about these reports she stated that she was not worried because children do not play on industrial sites. Meanwhile, it is reported in these assessments that there are soccer and baseball fields in Botwood that have carcinogens, Mr. Speaker, which we all know are cancer causing agents and chemicals present in the soil that are harmful to human health.

I ask the minister: Why did you not alert the people of Botwood that their play areas were contaminated so they could use their own judgement as to letting their children use these public spaces in the community?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, I understand why this is difficult for the member to comprehend because it is very technical in nature, Mr. Speaker. That is why I offered the resources of my staff to explain this.

In the case of the ball field – and by the way, I would like to point out for the member’s information we did talk to the Town of Botwood. In fact, my staff were out there on October 28 because when I did see this information I thought there may have been a concern there, but we did further investigation.

Just to break it down so you can put it into laymen’s terms, there was one single arsenic excedence that was taken between a half a metre and a metre below the soil in the ball field. The excedence was twenty-five milligrams per kilogram. If you compare that to the risk-based number that was done for Buchans on the surface, that was forty-eight milligrams per kilogram. So when you put the two in perspective, there is no human health safety concern there, Mr. Speaker, and that was communicated to the town October 28.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister was also quoted in The Telegram this morning as saying that no further testing is needed on this site because it is buried beneath ground. She says you might run into an issue if you build a house on the site but it is fine for children to play in this area.

I ask the minister: Why did you not do more testing to find out the true scope of the problem, especially when these initial issues were identified to you and to your department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Again, Mr. Speaker, very technical, but I will do my best to explain it.

When you are doing these types of assessments, you not only have to look at the soil type but you have to look at the type of hydrocarbon, and in this case, Mr. Speaker, it was lubricating oil. When you look at that and you look at it in comparison to the numbers that were done on a risk assessment basis in Buchans, it is two very different cases. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if the member would like to know, when Buchans is remediated, one of the things that we offered to the Town of Buchans once it is all cleaned up is to put a ball field on the site because that is one of the remediation efforts that you do, is that you cover up. In the case of heavy metals one of the best remediations you can do is cover it up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I also questioned the minister last week in relation to the sixteen sites of concern identified at the Abitibi mill in Grand Falls-Windsor. Without highlighting every one of the problems that exists, there is leaching of chemicals into the Exploits River. The consultant had identified chemicals such as chloroform, arsenic, mercury, and PCBs, along with seven other chemicals that are above the guidelines established by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.

I ask the minister: Why are you not concerned about the presence of chemicals in the Exploits River that exceed your own allowable limits under your own guidelines?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, that is the difficulties with letting people see these reports when they do not have the technical expertise to be able to interpret the results. If you look at the groundwater there, the gradient is away from the river, so it is not getting into people’s wells. Mr. Speaker, all of the limits, all of the discharge -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JOHNSON: - are in line with our provincial discharge limits. There were also environmental effects monitoring done in those areas and no issues were raised.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that she continues to try and raise this fear out there - if there was anything at all that we saw in these reports that would have raised an alarm for human health and safety concerns, we would have did the exact same things we did in Buchans. To even suggest otherwise is an absolute insult to this government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

For a government who claims that there are no problems out there and no environmental concerns out there they are fighting awful hard in the courts I say to get Abitibi to do the cleanup that is required, and the minister knows the difference and the irony in her own statement.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister again: Why do you have environmental limits that you sign on to under the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment if you have no intentions of following them in situations like this?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, I never once said that these concerns were not of an environmental nature. Certainly, we want to see these remediated. What I said was there was no human health and safety issue here, Mr. Speaker, and if there were, we would have acted the exact same way we did in Buchans.

Mr. Speaker, all of the discharge limits into the Exploits River are in line with our limits. They are in line with the Atlantic PIRI Tier I limits if you want exact specifics and there was environmental effects monitoring done on the site to show that there are no issues there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The reality is they had the reports, they kept them hidden, they did not have public information sessions and they did not release the information out there in the public until people went looking for it.

Mr. Speaker, the reports also highlight concerns about the presence of PCBs and PCB contaminated material being store outside of acceptable parameters. The minister is quoted today, again, saying that this does not pose any immediate health concerns.

I ask the minister: How can you be certain that this will not have any health impacts without knowing the full extent of the problem, and why aren’t you looking to have these serious issues dealt with immediately and have further testing done?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, I think this government has demonstrated quite clearly that we would have acted immediately had there been an immediate human health safety issue. We did it in Buchans; you can talk to the Mayor of Buchans, how open we were in that case. The Minister of Health was out, I was out - we had a whole team of officials out on two different occasions.

In this Budget we committed $9 million - the tenders are going out within a couple of weeks. All of that work is going to be completed by the fall. If there was any other human health and safety immediate risk, we would have done the exact same thing that we did in the case of Buchans.

All of these other issues are issues that need to be remediated from an environmental perspective. From a human health and safety concern, I want to tell the people out there, there is no need to panic because the Leader of the Opposition says there is need to panic. The science behind it – and we base everything in this government on science. The science says that there is no immediate human health safety concern.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the minister was doing her job in acting in the capacity of Environment Minister, she would be out there holding public sessions in Grand Falls-Windsor, in Botwood and all the communities that are affected so that they can ask questions and have answers to questions. Mr. Speaker, to date they have not even seen the information, I say to you, Minister. We are sending them the CDs; we are sending it out to them - something you should have done.

Mr. Speaker, the environmental consultant also indicated that they had to stop their investigation of one of the sites because bags containing asbestos were uncovered. While they could not determine the scope of the problem, they did raise concerns about water samples in the area that were above acceptable guidelines.

I ask the minister: As you are now the owner of this site, why aren’t you willing to investigate these problems further and the impact that it is having on the local environment?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition may question how I do my job, but I tell you one thing I do not do, I do not act irresponsibly and I do not flippantly send e-mails –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: - out to mayors of towns spreading panic in a town when there is absolutely no need to do it, Mr. Speaker.

We saw the actions, we saw in the paper last week how I had to call up the mayor, ease the concern there because of the irresponsible actions of the Leader of the Opposition and her staff.

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What the minister needs to realize is there is a difference between panic and public information, I say to you, Minister. Your job is to provide public information –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - to the people of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I make no apologies for the fact that I am sending all of the information to the towns in Central Newfoundland, and I hope that someone will have a look at it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: I ask the minister today why she is not concerned about the fact that there are ten chemicals above limits on their own regulations that are leaching out into the Exploits River, a salmon river in this Province. I ask you, Minister: Why are you not concerned about that, and why are you not taking further action against it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, to say that we are not concerned about the environment is simply unfair and it is untrue. Mr. Speaker, we take the issues of the environment very seriously, and that is exactly why we issued the orders to Abitibi in the first place. That is exactly why we pursued the leave to appeal yesterday in the court, and that is exactly why we will explore every single legal avenue that we have available to our government, to ensure that Abitibi brings the land back to the state that they found it in when they came here to use our resources.

If there is any human health and safety issues we will deal with them head on, and I certainly appreciate the member sending her CDs off to wherever she likes, but the members of all these towns know that my staff are available any time if they want to go into detail, into depth, on all of those reports. We are in fact sending them out as they want them. I have talked to the mayor of Grand Falls specifically on several occasions. My staff were out talking to the mayor of Botwood in October. I do not know how many times I have spoken to the mayor of Buchans, and all for very good reason.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Environment and Conservation is more concerned about gravel pit campers than she is about arsenic in our waters.

Mr. Speaker, this government invested $15 million into a Broadband Initiative undertaken by the Premier’s buddies back in 2006, yet on February 15 of this year, government quietly announced that Government’s Broadband Initiative was cancelled, in the fifth paragraph of a lengthy news release.

Now that this initiative has been cancelled, what plans does the government have in place to provide broadband to the hundreds of schools, government buildings, health facilities, public libraries and municipal buildings in this Province that still have no access to broadband?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we understand what government did in the February news release. What we did was we cancelled the Request for Proposals. We did not cancel the Broadband Initiative. The Broadband Initiative is alive and well, we are still working on it, and we will be coming out very shortly with some information to explain how we are proceeding forward.

It was deemed to be too expensive a venture, based upon the way that we were originally planning on going, and because of our fiscal responsibility, we decided to try an alternate route. The same goals and objectives are there, we will be bringing broadband out to all of the government agencies, legislative bodies, all of the schools, the service centres that we have with government. That will be done, but it will be done in a more fiscally responsible manner, and a way that makes sure that people receive the level of service they should receive.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It brings back a memory. The current Minister of Finance said to me one time: Stay tuned. We have been staying tuned on the fibre optic deal now for four years and we still have nothing.

Mr. Speaker, this $15 million got us eight fibre optic strands which sit unused to this day. Other than helping friends and former colleagues of the Premier get their trans-cable network built for them for their own benefit, when does government plan to make use of these strands, or does government plan to sell them off?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I will remind the member opposite that there was a review done by the Auditor General on that $15 million investment and the Auditor General’s comment was that it was a good deal. The Auditor General thought it was a good deal.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, the reason for that $15 million investment was that we as a government, when we formed government in 2003, we inherited from the members opposite what we referred to as a communications deficit. We were lagging, we were behind the times in terms of the communications capability in this Province and we needed to make sure that we had the basic infrastructure to be able to provide appropriate communications.

So, that $15 million was the first phase of a multi-phase project, which includes our high-speed Internet and our broadband strategy. We have seen improvements to the level of service already in this Province. Our corporate customers in the Province have seen a lowering of the fees that they are being charged. There are regions of the Province that have seen multiple services now and competing services. So they are getting better price points for it. So that investment was a good investment. The investments we will continue to make will also be good investments.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I remind the minister, they also inherited three oil deals and a good deal called Voisey’s that they do not tout too often either. In respect to the Auditor General, I remind the minister that the Auditor General said we would ultimately have to wait to see what came out of this deal in order to determine if in fact it was a good deal. We, in fact, will be asking the Auditor General to revisit the study that he did back in 2007.

The government’s rationale for this project was that government and related agencies would save a lot of money by building and using its own broadband infrastructure rather than using what was commercially available, but now we have a government-owned fibre optic link we are not using and we are still using and paying for commercial broadband providers. It seems we got the worst of both worlds. We have had to pay for our own system, and we are not using it –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to pose his question.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

We paid for our own system that we are not using and we are still paying for commercial providers.

I ask the government: Now that you have us between a rock and a hard spot, how do you plan to get us out of it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, we did come from a hard spot. The hard spot was over there when we inherited government; we have now moved them. We have come from a hard spot, we have moved into a much more comfortable spot. We now have redundancy in the broadband capabilities, the high-speed Internet capabilities that we have. We did not have that before. I do not think I need to remind people in this Province that we used to have outages. We had the whole Province went down when we had a fire at the Allandale Road station because of the fact that we had a lack of redundancy.

I will also remind the member opposite that we do have competing carriers now here in this Province because of the fact that we have that $15 million investment. We also have an investment by Greenland in terms of Milton out in the Clarenville area, where they now have connected us to them and them to us. It allows researchers at Memorial University, for instance, to now do research right across the world. There are all kinds of benefits being sought by that investment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

They might not have had a very high comfort level when he says they became government but we certainly have a ‘tanglation’ of fibres here now, I would say.

The main reason that government has provided for cancelling this initiative is cost. Rather than costing $20 million a year - which the Premier himself said - for ten years, that we are going to do this deal. It would cost $200 million. Now they have discovered, four years out, that it is going to cost $500 million rather than $200 million. We still have eight cables that we own that we are not using.

Considering this kind of gap exists, minister, between the government’s dreams and the reality that is on the ground: How can we have any confidence whatsoever in this government’s ability to do a fundamental project management and to cost it properly?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, we have already shown by the investment we have made of the $15 million, the benefits that have accrued to this Province. I have mentioned to you the fact that we now have redundancy available and that when we have the original line go down, the whole Province does not have to go down.

We have competing services. We have them happening in various areas of the Province. Before there was only one service provider, now we have multiple service providers. We have multiple services being offered. People now have high-speed Internet, people have high-definition television; people are seeing those kinds of benefits coming to their regions because of this investment.

The strategy was a multi-phased strategy. The first phase was the $15 million investment. The second phase was going to be what we refer to basically as the GBR, the Government Broadband Initiative. The planning on that deemed it to be too expensive in the direction we were going. We are doing the prudent fiscally responsible thing by stepping back from that and looking at alternative ways of meeting our goals.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That is cold comfort to the citizens of this Province who were promised they would have high-speed Internet access and to the government agencies that we were promised would be connected four years ago.

Every day, Mr. Speaker, we get calls and letters from people around this Province who cannot understand why they cannot get broadband services in their area after government promised it to them. We have businesses that cannot relocate to rural Newfoundland. We have students who cannot do their academic work. Broadband is not a luxury any more, it is a necessary part of modern life and the modern economy.

What hope can government give these communities, minister, that they will be able to receive affordable and reliable broadband services?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, the hope is much greater under this government than it was under the previous government. That is the first thing I will say.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, the investment that we have made was meant to make sure that we are able to provide the level of service that people expected. There was no deadline given with that. We were in the planning stage. We did not have a deadline date committed. We were planning on trying to move forward with our Broadband Initiative. We are still doing that. We will be able to provide the services to people; we just have to make sure we do it in a fiscally responsible, prudent manner. I would suggest to you that the people of the Province would expect nothing less of us than to make sure that we do that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All they have to offer is stay tuned, stay tuned. Fifteen million bucks out the door, four years in, and stay tuned.

Mr. Speaker, as this government was winding down its own broadband initiative, the federal government is ramping theirs up. On May 9, this year, the federal government announced projects across Canada aimed at linking homes in rural households. There is only one such project in this Province. They are going to link 207 homes in Red Bay, Labrador. That, by the way, has nothing to do with this government. It was a project of SmartLabrador. At that rate, it will take hundreds of years to connect Newfoundland and Labrador the way we need to be connected.

What actions will this government take to partner with the federal government or do you intend to talk to the federal government in any way in order to get this train back on track and get the homes in this Province connected to high-speed Internet as they ought to be?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I will make this point first of all to the member opposite. The government’s broadband initiative was not meant to bring high-speed Internet to homes in this Province, nor did we ever say that it would. What we said was that we were going to link all of the government facilities together. We were trying to make the business case for the telecommunications carriers, a better case so that they could provide services to the homes. That is what we are attempting to do.

Right now, the regions that are unserviced are unserviced because the private carriers, which are regulated by the federal government to provide that service, will not go in there and provide the service because of the fact it is cost prohibitive.

So what we are trying to do by expanding the government network is to make sure that some of the electronics and some of the technology that is needed in some of our rural regions is available to the private carriers to piggyback off, to be able to bring services to the private citizens and to the people of the Province. We are prepared to partner with the federal government, with private carriers, with anybody else that has the means to be able to allow us to reach the goal that we are trying to reach, which is providing services throughout the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday government hired a consultant to review offshore oil spill safety practices, a good first step. However, when the Cougar S-92 helicopter crashed last year, government appointed a commissioner to investigate and gave that position wide resources to complete that job.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier: What resources will government give to the consultant to be able to complete his work in ninety days?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my department is currently working, as we speak here today, on the development of the work plan for the review. Out of that will come a listing of resources that he will need to help him complete his work. Our commitment, Mr. Speaker, is to ensure that he has all of the tools, all of the resources he needs to do to fulfill his mandate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I look forward to hearing from the minister with regard to that work plan when it is finished.

Mr. Speaker, in yesterday’s press release the minister says safety and protection are paramount in our offshore, but in the terms of reference there is no mention of workers, in spite of the fact that eleven workers were killed in the Gulf. Mr. Speaker, the terms of reference for the consultant are vague on the legislative and regulatory regimes and practices regarding worker safety in the potential of spills.

I ask the minister, Mr. Speaker: Why he is investigating the regimes regarding worker safety not mentioned in the terms of reference?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the terms of reference make Captain Turner responsible for a review of all of the legislative and regulatory processes in our offshore; both those contained within the accord act and those outside of the accord act. Mr. Speaker, that means human safety and the environment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to hear that specified clearly because it is not clear from the terms of reference.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Natural Resources said she is confident that the C-NLOPB will protect worker safety, citing that they have a chief safety officer and a chief environmental officer. However, Mr. Speaker, during the S-92 crash hearings, that same chief safety officer revealed that though he knew emergency suits were not fitting properly, he did not know as a regulator how to broach these problems with the operators.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: In the light of this information, how can she say that she has confidence that worker safety issues are being covered by the current regime and why did she not see the need because of that to include the regime specifically covering worker safety in the terms of reference?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my former answer, when Captain Turner was asked to review all of the processes of the C-NLOPB, the Accord Acts and response systems not covered by the Accord Acts, that meant everything, Mr. Speaker. There were no carve outs at all. So it would be logical to understand that human safety certainly will be a part of that review.

Now, Mr. Speaker, in terms of the suits, emergent suits that are worn and the issue that has been raised in the Wells Inquiry with regard to the helicopter, Mr. Speaker, standards are set outside of the C-NLOPB and there is a federal authority responsible. The standards that were existent in this country at that time were being met. Those standards are now being reviewed, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A final question, the hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I do ask the minister though, Mr. Speaker, when she heard these comments made during the Wells hearings, which I am sure that she did, did she follow it up to look at what the role of the chief safety officer might have been in pursuing how he could deal with - it is very disturbing to read. It is said in the report, and I have read it, that he did not know how to broach this issue because of the regulations. That seems to be a real weakness in the C-NLOPB, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, and not only were we looking at it at the time it rose in the Wells Inquiry but the Premier and I raised this issue publicly. We raised it with the C-NLOPB. We raised it with the operators in our offshore. We raised it with the federal government, and we raised it with the certifying agencies and organizations in this country.

Mr. Speaker, we take these issues very, very seriously and while the board operates arm’s-length from this government, Mr. Speaker, we raise issues whenever they are identified.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.