The problem was recognized first, or at least formally recognized, by Lord Cullen, arising out of Piper Alpha. The people who make the rules and give the permission to explore and to develop may have a certain mindset, and within the same organization there is a group who has to ignore those things and look purely at safety. There is the distinction and possibly the danger.
I have another concept in my own mind about a safety authority. I see such an authority as not simply being a safety authority for the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. I see it as a national safety authority operating first in Canada's only offshore, which is the east coast, but also if we go into the north, where it would also operate. It would operate wherever oil and gas were discovered offshore. In Norway there's an office in Stavanger, and in the U.K., there's an office here, there, or in the Shetlands or wherever. In Canada I would see such an office on the east coast, in Halifax, and a larger office in St. John's. If ever oil is developed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there would also be an office there, and the people would be moved around.
One of the things that the head of the U.K. authority said to me personally, and I also heard him say it at a conference in Canada a couple of years ago, was that you have to be careful about regulatory capture. Now to my knowledge, there has been no regulatory capture in Canada in the offshore—none. But if you look into the Gulf of Mexico tragedy, there was regulatory capture. There was a closeness between regulators and operators that shouldn't have been there. That's something to be guarded against. I see it as a national organization that would have branches where necessary and the movement of personnel between the branches so that regulatory capture would be most unlikely to occur.
I honestly believe that our society runs on oil. It's not just what goes in the gas tank. There are the tires, there is the clothing we wear, and there is the plastics industry, all of which are based on oil derivatives. I saw pictures of the first installations offshore and they were rickety wooden structures built off the beach. And yet we've gone now out to the edge of the continental shelf. Will we go down the slope? Quite possibly. So safety is going to be and has to be more rigorous.
I see it as a national agency with branches and people where necessary. That would be my concept. Whether it will happen, of course, I have no idea.