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Canada Eyes 'Big Chunk' of Sea Floor
Extending 200-Mile Limit Another 150 Miles Would Include Rights to all Resources

Alan White - Telegraph Journal

Fredericton - Canada is preparing to lay claim to untold riches on and beneath the ocean floor in the Atlantic and Arctic regions in a move that may also have benefits for the embattled fishery in Atlantic Canada.

Through a claim to a commission of the United Nations, Canada will seek to have its current 200-nautical mile offshore limit expanded by 150 miles or more in some areas of Atlantic Canada. In total, the claim under international law will ask that Canada be given new jurisdiction over an area of ocean floor that's roughly equivalent to the three Prairie provinces.

"We're not just looking at a postage stamp here," said Ron Macnab, a geophysist with the Geological Survey of Canada in Halifax. "It's a big chunk of the ocean floor."

If approved by the UN commission, Canada would be able to claim the resources found on the ocean floor - scallops, for instance, and perhaps lobster - as well as any natural gas or oil reserves found beneath the sea bottom.

Canada would not have exclusive jurisdiction over the fish in the water beyond the current limit, so the Nose and Tip of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap area east of Newfoundland would remain open to international fishers, even though they would fall within the expended offshore boundary.

The plan to make the claim has been in the works for several years but remains in a holding pattern, pending ratification by the federal government of the Law of the Sea as set out by the United Nations. Once Canada signs on to the international law - there is no indication of when that might take placed - it will be able to make a claim for the additional territory under Article 76 of the UN law and be given 10 years to prepare its case.

"We are given an instrument to expand our boundaries without going to war," said Mr. Macnab, who will be at the University of New Brunswick tomorrow to brief international experts on Canada's plans. "We really should think of future generations and take advantage of it."

The driving force behind the claim would be to gain control over natural gas and oil reserves that may be located outside Canada's current 200-mile limit. The Hibernia oil rig off Newfoundland is located near the edge of the 200-mile limit, but the oil field itself extends well into international waters. Off Nova Scotia, the Sable Island natural gas project is well within the current limit, but Mr. Macnab said the gas field may extend well into what are now international waters.

"The major thrust is resources on and below the sea bed," said Mr. Macnab. "If there is one thing we're discovering it's that there is gas and oil in a lot of deep ocean areas around the world. Countries are drilling in deeper and deeper water every year and we have prime territory."

"There is no way of estimating how much the resources found beyond the current limit might be worth," said Mr. Macnab. "We can only come up with arm-waving figures saying, 'Yes, this will be worth a lot.' While Canada would not have exclusive fishing rights in the area beyond the current 200-mile limit, it may still be able to help conserve stocks through the provisions of Article 76. It could give us a strong handle to stop bottom draggers. A lot of draggers might be picking up fish that swim, but they do it by dragging these humungous rigs along the seabed and that just totally destroys the habitat for the species that live on the seabed," he said.

"It's not quite clear yet how we'll be able to interpret that, but it seems that might give us the authority to regulate this means of harvesting the free-swimming stocks," stated Mr. Macnab. "If we have the authority to manage and regulate the species that live on the seafloor, I personally - and it's my own point of view - I would interpret that to mean we can also regulate the activities that might damage the environment that they live in."

Whether lobster would be classed a bottom-dwelling species that would be exclusive to Canada is a question that Mr. Macnab can't answer. "Not only do these things have to live on the bottom, they have to get around by staying in contact with the bottom," he said. "You're stretching a point with lobster, because lobster can propel themselves without touching the bottom. but most of the time they walk on the bottom. It will be interesting when people start debating these fine point."

A Canadian application for a boundaries extension is unlikely to be rubber-stamped by the United Nations commission that decided such matters. "Not all members of that commission are necessarily friendly to the concept of extending jurisdiction beyond 200 nautical miles," he said. "We don't know how this is going to play itself out. The commission has just come into existence and no one knows how it's going to render its judgments."