Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to answer this question of my colleague on an issue of importance to Canada.
Canada did sign the law of the sea convention in 1982 but we did have some concerns about some provisions in that convention with regard to the exploitation of the deep seabed. After long negotiations we were able to sign the agreement in the United Nations this year on July 29. Because of that we are now looking through all of our laws to make sure they are consistent with the convention.
The convention will come into force in November of this year and we hope to be able to ratify it ourselves soon thereafter.