EDITORIAL PAGE — Offshore mineral rights

An international court in New York reached a compromise decision recently in a fishing zone dispute between Canada and France off the southern coast of Newfoundland. The court rejected ocean boundary claims by both countries and gave France economic ownership of more than 3,600 square nautical miles of ocean territory.

The ruling means French fishermen have first dibs on catching the fish swimming within the zone, which is 10.5 miles in width and which runs southward for 200 miles from the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. It also likely means that French geologists will get first crack at exploring the seabed for minerals within the zone, and French miners will have the first chance of extracting the bounty of any uncovered mineral deposits. The islands are administered by France, which was claiming the rights to a 200-mile zone under international law. For France, it was a matter of sovereignty. Canada’s position was that French fishermen should be restricted to a 12-nautical-mile zone surrounding St. Pierre and Miquelon. Who knows what volumes of valuable minerals lie off the coastlines of Newfoundland and Canada’s three other Atlantic provinces. The Grand Banks, for so long associated with fishing, may in fact turn out to be the “Grand Gold Banks.”

The subject of fishing is a painful one for Newfoundlanders these days; the federal government has just slapped a 2-year moratorium on the northern cod fishery, idling thousands of fishermen and fish-plant workers in the process. Imagine if the Canada-France dispute had erupted not over fish, but a potentially large, high-grade gold showing.

Canada tells the 5-member tribunal that it has a long history of mining, mainly inland but future plans have always included offshore prospecting and development. It wants France limited to a 12-mile maritime zone about 1,070 square nautical miles in size (roughly two-thirds the size of Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province).

France, claiming the 200-mile limit, says it wants a 14,500-square-mile zone, taking in a chunk of the Grand Banks.

Canada argues that mining is one of Newfoundland’s traditional industries and that the province is much more dependent on mining than its island neighbors. In making its “economic” case, Canada says residents of St. Pierre and Miquelon, living much closer to Canadian than French territory, count heavily on Newfoundland for their survival, and have come to think of Newfoundland’s transportation and medical resources as theirs as much as anybody else’s. France falls back on the sovereignty argument and says a mineralized zone discovered on French territory will be developed and then mined only under French laws and regulations. Just as Newfoundland needs the gold to boost its economy, say the French, so do the two islands.

The dispute dates back to 1977, when Canada announced the creation of a 200-mile coastal zone as a means of protecting its fishery. France also claimed a 200-mile zone for the two islands. By the late 1980s, the situation had deteriorated to ship arrests by both sides.

By introducing the moratorium, the federal government is hoping that cod stocks regenerate in sufficient numbers for a resumption of commercial fishing. Orebodies, however, can’t regenerate and once the valuable mineral credits have been exhausted, the cavity that remains receives an injection of fill.

Here’s hoping the compromise solution with France works out to the satisfaction of both sides, and that one day Canada will get to mine its offshore mineral deposits, if some still remain in its possession.