National Defence committee  I apologize, but I didn't quite catch the name. Joseph-Elzéar Bernier made four trips to the Arctic and on one of these trips, he erected a plaque. He was a proponent of the sector theory, which, I can assure you, carries no legal weight. Nevertheless, I'm not saying that his gesture was meaningless.

National Defence committee  I don't think I can help you a lot as far as the last two points are concerned. I'm not up on the financial side of matters. My sole concern is the legal side.

National Defence committee  I'm happy you brought that up. It's more than a simple declaration of intent. As it so happens, a decision was reached in 1933 in the matter of a dispute between Norway and Denmark over the sovereignty of the eastern part of Greenland. The court held that when a head of State or a representative speaks on behalf of his government, even if only to make a simple declaration, the government is bound by the declaration, even if it is unilateral.

National Defence committee  They mean nothing, absolutely nothing. The Russians are no fools and they know this very well. It's all for show, for the media. That said, from a scientific standpoint, I have to say that the Russians are far more advanced that the other four Arctic states in terms of their knowledge of the geology of the Arctic polar basin.

National Defence committee  What is in your riding? I'm awfully sorry, sir.

National Defence committee  I'm finishing. I know I'm—

National Defence committee  Yes, that's right.

National Defence committee  No. I think I list twelve here. I'm not sure. I had limited myself—you would have seen on my outline—to six of them. The first one I think is the most important one; that is, to make the present voluntary system of northern regulation compulsory, but particularly to enforce it.

National Defence committee  Canada has until 2013 since we ratified our convention in 2003. Each State has ten years to submit its data. Occasionally, this process can take longer. In Russia's case, the deadline passed three or four years ago and it was granted an extension until 2013.

National Defence committee  To answer your second question, the fact that the Inuit have occupied the land since time immemorial is an important consideration, but it's not connected to the issue of the establishment of the outer limits of the shelf. Nevertheless, it is a major consideration and could prove extremely important for consolidating Canada's rights, specifically its sovereignty over the coastal waters delimited in 1985.

National Defence committee  So am I; I'm very sorry.

National Defence committee  I am, I think I would dare say, at the highest level of confidence. I have written that in a 65-page article, for which I can give you the reference if you're interested.

National Defence committee  I'll give it to you later, so as not to lose time. To summarize very briefly, Canada did that, as I indicated a moment ago, not under the Convention on the Law of the Sea, but under customary international law as applied by the International Court of Justice in 1951.

National Defence committee  No.

National Defence committee  Corfu Channel is on navigation rights. No, it was the Anglo-Norwegian fisheries case of 1951. Corfu Channel was in 1949. It had nothing to do with that, but it is important in relation to the Northwest Passage nevertheless, on another point. The reason I am very confident is that it was only some 20 years later--eighteen and a half years, to be exact--that Canada, after drawing the straight baselines, became party to the Convention on the Law of the Sea, so it was not by virtue of a provision of the law of the sea convention, but by virtue of customary international law.