By KEVIN COX
Wednesday, April 3, 2002 Print Edition, Page A6
HALIFAX -- Newfoundland politicians struggled to hide their jubilation and their Nova Scotia counterparts tried harder to disguise their dismay yesterday after a federal tribunal ruled that about 75 per cent of one of Canada's major offshore petroleum deposits belongs to the Rock.
"We've had a very, very good past six days," Newfoundland Energy and Mines Minister Lloyd Matthews said, adding that the awarding of the oil- and gas-rich Laurentian sub-basin takes place only a few days after Husky Oil announced it would proceed with the White Rose offshore project.
The decision by the federally appointed tribunal, headed by retired Supreme Court of Canada judge Gerard LaForest, ends a bitter and costly 37-year feud between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
Over the past three years, the two economically challenged provinces spent a combined total of about $5.2-million fighting over where the offshore boundary should be.
In the end, the federal arbitration panel drew a line in the ocean dividing the waters between the provinces into equal parts.
But the line also gives Newfoundland three-quarters of the 60,000-square-kilometre Laurentian sub-basin.
Nova Scotia gets about 16 per cent, and 9 per cent of it belongs to France.
Newfoundland's ownership means millions of dollars in potential royalties.
Canada's poorest province also gets first dibs on thousands of jobs that could be created if a significant oil or natural-gas discovery is made in the area.
"It's a very good outcome for us," Mr. Matthews said in an interview. "It allows us to accrue a significant amount of acreage. We always thought we had a very strong case to be made, and that's why we had an obligation to the people of this province to define that line."
Mr. Matthews added that Newfoundland spent $1.8-million on the legal process to have the line defined after politicians from the two provinces repeatedly failed to come up with an agreement.
"We never characterized this as a fight for territory or for a particular parcel. We started from the premise of wanting a line defined on the basis of international marine law," he said.
Nova Scotia, which has insisted that the boundary was established in 1964 in agreement with Newfoundland, spent about $3.4-million in the fight for the sub-basin.