OTTAWA – Canada is poised to claim ownership of a vast new expanse of undersea territory beyond its Atlantic and Arctic coasts that’s greater in size than Quebec and equal to about 20 per cent of the country’s surface area, Postmedia News has learned.
The huge seabed land grab has been in the works since 1994, when federal scientists first conducted a “desktop study” of Canada’s potential territorial expansion under a new UN treaty allowing nations to extend their offshore jurisdictions well past the current 200-nautical-mile (370-km) limit of so-called “Exclusive Economic Zones” in coastal waters.
But the UN also set strict criteria for converting underwater tracts of “no man’s land” into a nation’s territorial possessions, including exhaustive geological studies proving these distant stretches of seabed — including potentially massive oil-and-gas deposits — are “natural prolongations” of each applicant country’s continental bedrock.
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Canada poised for massive undersea land grab off Arctic, Atlantic coasts
The huge seabed land grab has been in the works since 1994, when federal scientists first conducted a “desktop study” of Canada’s potential territorial expansion under a new UN treaty allowing nations to extend their offshore jurisdictions well past the current 200-nautical-mile (370-km) limit of so-called “Exclusive Economic Zones” in coastal waters.
But the UN also set strict criteria for converting underwater tracts of “no man’s land” into a nation’s territorial possessions, including exhaustive geological studies proving these distant stretches of seabed — including potentially massive oil-and-gas deposits — are “natural prolongations” of each applicant country’s continental bedrock.
more
Canada poised for massive undersea land grab off Arctic, Atlantic coasts
