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The Marine Administrative Boundaries of New Brunswick

Objective: to define what coastal and areas for which the Province of New Brunswick for which has administrative responsibility.

Expected Results:

  1. a legal research study of jurisdictional and administrative marine boundaries delimitation in federations (e.g., Australia, USA., Canada), including delimitation of outward state boundaries and boundaries between states
  2. a set of lines derived using CARIS software that represent the outward extent of NB administration and the county boundary extensions
  3. a set of digital polygon files for the marine administrative area\
  4. a report on how the boundary was defined, what criteria were used, the uncertainties, and what issues remain unresolved
  5. a demonstration, using visualization software, of the boundary issues and potential solutions

Collaboration: This case study is directly supported by Service New Brunswick. Software being used to create the marine boundaries and polygons was created by CARIS. Visualization software is supported by IVS (Interactive Visualsation Systems Inc.). The project will also be working with DataQC, another Fredericton firm that is responsible for creating the digital files for the NB land administrative boundaries. Shoreline data has also been provided at nominal cost from the Province of Prince Edward Island.

Researchers: The following people are directly involved in achieving the results although all of the project researchers have and will continue to have input:

Anne LaForest, UNB Dean of Law and Case Study Leader
Sue Nichols, Professor, UNB GGE, Case Study Co-ordinator and Project Leader

Michael Sutherland, PhD student - creation of the boundaries and digital files
Sara Cockburn - MEng student - legal research
Elizabeth Smith - Law Student - legal research
 

Some of the Issues Being Considered To Date:

1. How does "administration" differ from jurisdiction and ownership in offshore areas?

A great deal of effort has been given to understanding the legal differences between jurisdiction, administration, and ownership.  The offshore limits of each for the Province of New Brunswick may be different. Furthermore the project team is beginning to appreciate that there may be sets of administrative boundaries for different types of resources or resource use.

Thus, for example, the Province may have administration over aquaculture (possibly including or not including sea ranching in the far offshore) in a particular offshore area. The federal government administers navigational and environmental laws in the same area.  A county may have administration of land registration in this area, and a municipality may have administration of property taxes. One level of government may "own" particular resources such as minerals, while another "owns" the sea bottom or another resource.

The result is that when the project began, the administrative boundaries were perceived as unique lines, wherever they may be spatially. Today our conception of administrative boundaries has changed to sets of non co-incident boundaries.
 

Figure 1 on the left: The marine parcel

A conceptual diagram of the complex set of rights and controls in the offshore (Sutherland, 2000)

2. What is the legal status of the 1964 "agreement" between the 5 Atlantic coastal provinces, in which median lines between provinces were defined, Does this "agreement" define jurisdiction, ownership, or administration?  Can the median lines be supported by other legal principles?

The tribunal decision in the Newfoundland-Nova Scotia offshore boundary dispute has ruled that the "agreement" was not binding on Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, i.e., it had not been a signed agreement.  The tribunal will meet again to decide where the boundary should be.

Legal research is being conducted on whether this affects New Brunswick's so-called "median lines" between Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec.
 


Median lines between the Provinces: What are their legal status with respect to provincial administration? (the red area at the bottom is the around Machais Seal Island, ownership of which is still disputed between Canada and the US. 

3.   If one wants to define a median or equidistant line, what shoreline forms the base for measurement?

In cases where there are islands, rocks, or tidal flats, the vertical datum chosen to represent the shoreline (i.e., the intersection of the datum with the shore) may affect the horizontal location of an equidistant line or may cause islands and rocks to appear covered (or not covered) with water.

There are a number of datums to choose from, a few of which include:

  1. ordinary low water - as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada as the limit of jurisdiction of the province of British Columbia with respect to minerals and petroleum.
  2. chart datum (e.g., lower low water large tides): The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea uses the low water as depicted on a large scale navigational chart of the nation as the baseline for measuring zones and equidistant lines.
  3. ordinary high water:  this datum creates a line representing the limit of private ownership under the common law and is the line depicted on the current New Brunswick coastal mapping series.
  4. mean sea level: this is an undulating surface representing the average of all high and low tides, usually over a long period of time. It has no legal significance.


This problem is intensified by the fact that:

  1. each province and federal agency uses different datums to define shorelines;
  2. most of the mapping was created without much concern for the precise calculation of the datum elevation (thus when it says Mean High Water,  it is only an estimate; the New Brunswick coastal mapping of ordinary high water is based on interpretation of physical features);
  3. the larger the scale of mapping used, the more "ragged" the coast appears, thus creating the need to implement somewhat arbitrary principles (e.g., closing lines for bays and estuaries; inclusion of the effects of very small islands) more frequently.


4. How are these principles for representing the shoreline and giving effect to special circumstances be designed or applied?

Should the median lines be affected by equitable circumstances (e.g., special historical, economic, or geographical considerations), as have been recognized by the International Court of Justice in delimiting equidistant boundaries between nations. Do international principles apply when delimiting boundaries within Canada?