Canada's natural resources minister has been warned by officials in his department that the federal government would be powerless to unilaterally halt offshore drilling projects in areas where regulatory oversight is shared with the provinces, Postmedia News has learned.

For now, the limit on federal powers applies only off the coasts of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. But documents obtained exclusively by Postmedia News also reveal the federal government has entered into "informal" discussions with other provinces with coastal waters where oil exploration could one day take place, including Quebec, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

The documents suggest the federal government could run into jurisdictional battles with the provinces if it sought to impose a national moratorium on offshore drilling, as the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama did in the wake of this summer's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

A blowout at BP's Macondo well on April 20 unleashed the biggest oil spill in history. In late May, Obama suspended the issuance of new deepwater-drilling permits and shut down all such drilling under way in the Gulf. BP sealed the well in July, but only after it had spewed more than 4 million barrels of crude oil.

The U.S. government finally lifted the moratorium last month, while at the same time announcing tough new drilling rules.

Internal emails show that, as the Gulf disaster unfolded, the office of Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis -as well as the Prime Minister's Office -took a keen interest in how Canada might handle a spill on the same scale.
source: www.montrealgazette.com