Mr. Speaker, time and time again, I have raised the fact that the United States is putting out oil leases in the Canadian Beaufort Sea and there is no response from the government. It waxes eloquent about protecting Canadian sovereignty. There have been all sorts of speeches and a number of announcements, most of which have not come to fruition. Yet, when there is a serious dispute, where is the government?
The Beaufort Sea has a disputed area. Canadians say that it goes from the 141st meridian. The Americans use another aspect of international law on a perpendicular to the shoreline, resulting in an area four times the size of Prince Edward Island and larger than some countries. What we claim as Canadian, the Americans claim as the United States. Yet, when they threaten our sovereignty by putting out oil leases, what is the response? It is very mild. Nothing has been said to Canadians about how we protected or dealt with that.
I put in a question on the order paper earlier this year and I received the answer. I asked what was happening with this dispute with the United States. It is the one serious major dispute at this time about Canada's economic property, with tens of millions of dollars worth of resources. The government said there is no dispute. It said that it was simply “a well managed disagreement”. It is not very well managed if the United States keep infringing on our potential economic interests.
It carries on. A couple of weeks ago, on November 9, the state of Alaska put out a 437 page document entitled “Beaufort Sea Areawide Oil and Gas Lease Sale”. Once again, in spite of any diplomatic letters we have written in the past or any mild complaints that the Canadians have not really heard about, the Americans keep on putting out leases on Canadian property. We should be sitting down and working out this dispute instead of allowing the Americans to go ahead and threaten our sovereignty in these ways.
The next issue that came up was the fisheries. The Americans have decided to put a moratorium on Canadian fisheries in our part of the Beaufort Sea. Once again, what is the response other than a letter? We hear nothing about sitting down and working this out. This area of the Canadian Beaufort is also managed by six Inuit communities in the western Arctic on the terms of the 1984 Inuvialuit final land claim agreement.
Not only all Canadians, but specifically and legally the Inuvialuit, have a big interest in this area. We sent a letter on April 27 saying that this was not acceptable and that this was our territory. What was the result from the United States in this well managed disagreement? On August 27, Secretary of Commerce Locke announced that the Americans were going ahead and doing it anyway, once again ignoring Canada's claims.
Finally, one suggested solution was that Canada would also put a moratorium on our side. As opposed to challenging the United States, we would do what we want by passing our own law.