Arbitrating a fiction: Canadian federalism and the Nova Scotia/ Newfoundland and Labrador boundary dispute
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract: The offshore area between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador and the natural resources that it holds have recently been the subject of dispute between the two provinces. Constitutionally, jurisdiction for offshore resources belongs to the federal government. Control over development and revenue has been shared with the provinces through joint management accords. In order to deal with the dispute over where the offshore boundary between the two provinces lies, the accords provide for arbitration by a tribunal reporting to the federal minister of natural resources. That tribunal has now completed its work. This article analyses the tribunal, its terms of reference, and its findings, and concludes that the tribunal process was flawed. There are reasons to doubt the appropriateness of its role, the method by which it made its decision, and the legality of its findings. Ultimately, the tribunal's process perpetuates the myth that what is being discussed are genuine boundaries between the provinces. The boundary is, in that regard, a fiction. In fact, the process is simply apportioning federal resources between two provinces. The tribunal cloaks a political decision in legal garb. The minister of natural resources is able to avoid political responsibility for making a decision by relying on a pseudo‐judicial body for technical recommendations. As in many of the other practices that have come to dominate intergovernmental relations in Canada, the accountability of governments is lost in the process. Sommaire: La zone cotière entre la Nouvelle‐Éacosse, Terre‐Neuve et le Labrador ainsi que les resources naturelles qu'elle comporte ont réacemment fait l'objet de conflits entre les deux provinces. Conformément à la constitution, les resources en mer sont du ressort du gouvernement féadéral. Le contrôle de la mise en valeur et des revenus a été partagé avec les provinces par le biais d'accords de gestion conjoints. Ces accords prévoient l'arbitrage par un tribunal relevant du ministre fédéral des Ressources naturelles pour traiter les conflits concernant la frontière au large des côtes entre les deux provinces. Ce tribunal a maintenant terminé son travail. Le présent article offre une analyse de ce tribunal, de son mandat, et de ses conclusions, et relève que le processus du tribunal était défectueux. Il existe des raisons de douter du caractère adhuat de son rôle, de la méthode par laquelle il a pris sa décision et de la légalité de ses conclusions. Enfin, le processus du tribunal perpétue le mythe selon lequel l'enjeu des discussions porte sur les véritables frontières entre les provinces. La frontière est, à cet égard, de la fiction. En fait, le processus répartit tout simplement les ressources fédérales entre deux provinces. Le tribunal masque une décision politique sous un déguisement juridique. Le ministre des Ressources naturelles arrive àéviter la responsabilité politique d'une décision en comptant sur un organe pseudo‐juridique pour présenter des recommandations techniques. Comme cela est le cas dans de nombreuses pratiques qui dominent aujourd'hui les relations inter‐gouvemementales au Canada, l'imputabilité des gouvernements se perd dans le processus.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.012 | 0.025 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.049 | 0.034 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".