Mr. Chairman, if I may, I want to talk a bit about what we are attempting to do up there. As George has explained, the families living up there are not there by their choice; they were relocated by the Government of Canada in 1953 and 1955. Most of the adults have returned to northern Quebec or have died. The second and third generations are still living up there. They still consider themselves guardians of the High Arctic islands. We consider the Northwest Passage internal waters, and it's a position that we're not prepared to abandon.
I'd also like to mention a study that we carried out back in 1973 or 1974, which was called the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project. It was done by a professor from Calgary, and it showed just how much the Inuit used and occupied the lands and waters of the Arctic. I think you all would be very surprised to see how much land use and occupancy there actually is. When you look at the study, almost every square kilometre of this territory is covered by land use by Inuit people, and it has been like that for thousands and thousands of years. So there's no question that we use the Arctic every single day.
There are also three or four projects that I want to mention. We have been working with Parks Canada over the past couple of years to work out a memorandum of understanding for a national marine conservation area for Lancaster Sound. Lancaster Sound is the Northwest Passage and we're trying to do a study on creating a national marine conservation area for the eastern part of Lancaster Sound.
We're also in discussions with Parks Canada to negotiate the creation of a national park on north Bathurst Island. North Bathurst Island is part of the famous Polar Bear Pass.
We have also been in discussions with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on possible marine protection areas, which I believe are under the Oceans Act.
We're trying our very best to implement the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Unfortunately, the NTI is in court. They have taken the Government of Canada to court because they feel that the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement has not been implemented properly.
As I said, relocation is a big issue in the two communities that are on the Northwest Passage—Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord. We negotiated a compensation package with the Government of Canada back in the 1990s. We were also asking for an apology from the Government of Canada, which to us was more important than the compensation. That apology has not been forthcoming, and as long as we don't have that apology, we still consider the case to be open. We will continue to work for an apology as long as it's not forthcoming.
I think we've probably gone over our five- or six-minute time limit, so we'll leave it at that for now. Thank you.