The Canadian Press

The federal government is pledging to work with its American counterparts after the U.S. claimed parts of the Arctic sea floor that Canada also wants. 

The U.S. filed its claim last month with the United Nations agency that evaluates such requests.

As expected, it includes a large chunk of the Beaufort Sea floor that Canada also seeks to control.

A UN treaty gives countries rights over seabeds and their natural resources if they can prove their continental shelf extends past 200 nautical miles from their coast and is a natural extension of the continent.

A look at news events in December 2023:

01 - The Ottawa Senators fired general manager Pierre Dorion. The team announced that hockey operations president Steve Staios will take over the job on an interim basis.

02 - Montreal-based broadcaster TVA Group says it is laying off nearly one-third of its workforce as the company contends with declining audiences and ad revenues. It says the shift involves overhauling its news division and ending its in-house entertainment content production.

1 – Two people died after a bear attack in Alberta's Banff National Park. Parks Canada staff euthanized the grizzly bear for public safety.  

1 – It went down to the wire, but the U.S. government avoided a shutdown after Congress rushed to approve a bipartisan deal, keeping federal agencies open until Nov. 17. The deal was reached after Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy abruptly abandoned demands for steep spending cuts, and relied on Democrats to pass the bill.

A look at news events in September 2023:

01 – Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett died at the age of 76. His song ''Margaritaville" was released in 1977 and spent 22 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.

04 - Steve Harwell, the longtime frontman of the Grammy-nominated pop rock band Smash Mouth, died of acute liver failure at the age of 56.

04 - Ontario's housing minister Steve Clark resigned from his role days after a damning report from the integrity commissioner found he violated ethics rules when the province opened up parts of the protected Greenbelt for development. 

01 - The last surviving miner from the October 1958 Springhill, Nova Scotia coal mine disaster died. Harold Brine was 91. Only 19 of the 174 men working in the mine were rescued after a seismic shock wave trapped them near the bottom of North America's deepest coal mine. Brine was just 26 at the time.

02 - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau announced they decided to separate after 18 years of marriage. They announced the decision on Instagram, saying it follows what they describe as many meaningful and difficult conversations. 

1 – Scores of forest fires burned in Ontario and Quebec, and the smoke continued to drift hundreds of kilometres into the southern reaches of the provinces and into the central and northeastern U.S. Environment Canada issued smog warnings for northern and western Quebec, and parts of eastern and southern Ontario. 

Ten people were rescued Thursday after a small plane crashed in a remote area of the Northwest Territories and they were stranded overnight.

David Lavallee, a spokesman with 1 Canadian Air Division and Canadian Norad Region Headquarters, said everyone was picked up from the crash site and taken to the nearby Diavik diamond mine. Some were injured.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Trenton started the search-and-rescue operation Wednesday, after the Air Tindi Otter aircraft crashed about 16 kilometres southeast of the mine.

A look at news events in June 2023.

01 -  Civil servants in Quebec are now required to speak and write exclusively in French while on the job except in certain cases, such as access to health care and social services in English, or situations where health, public safety or principles of natural justice require the use of languages other than French.

A look at news events in May 2023:

1 – Legendary Canadian folk singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot died of natural causes at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital at the age of 84.