Thank you for that question.
I mentioned in my statement before that Canada is pursuing an Arctic policy that is based on our northern strategy. As you know, our northern strategy promotes governance and democracy. It promotes economic development, the protection of the environment, and of course, sovereignty.
I had the opportunity to meet with a lot of my counterparts, ministers responsible for the Arctic Council, when I was in Tromsø, Norway, not long ago, where we had the opportunity to hold our meeting. A number of issues were discussed there, some extremely important, as you know, particularly in terms of doing the geographic mapping of the Arctic and the continental plateau. That is under way as we speak.
Canada is doing a great job in cooperation with the Americans sometimes, and with the Danes. We're out there making sure that by the year 2013 we will have done all of the surveying and will have finished the mapping of that area, so that the decisions made at Ilulissat two years ago will indeed have a basis in terms of respecting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and so that we will have the necessary data in place to be able to make that determination.
So briefly, as you know, Canada has its border; then beyond that, we have our 200-mile economic zone; and beyond that, we are now doing the mapping of the continental plateau. I've had the opportunity to speak with people from our department, as well as people from NRCan, as to how that is progressing. It's going very well. We do have, on the part of all of the coastal members as well as the members of the Arctic Council, not only a willingness but also a commitment to respect the decisions that will come forward from that process.
On another front, of course, I might want to point out how the EU had made a request to become a permanent observer at the Arctic Council. Canada refused that request. We refused it because we feel the sensitivities needed by some of the states or some of the countries in the EU, particularly regarding the well-being of the Inuit and the first nations who live there in terms of their seal hunting and their procuring of their basic needs, have not yet been well recognized by the EU. Therefore, over the coming year, given certain criteria that are going to be put forward, we will be able to evaluate observer status for different countries, as well as for the European Union.