Canadian Coast Guard


The Canadian Coast Guard is a special operating agency responsible for marine search and rescue, navigation aids, marine communications and traffic services, icebreaking, and marine pollution response. Formed in 1962, the CCG is a civilian organization currently housed within the Department of National Defence and headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. The CCG operates 119 vessels of varying sizes and 23 helicopters, along with a variety of smaller craft.

Role and responsibility

Unlike armed coast guards of some other nations, the CCG is a government marine organization without naval or law enforcement responsibilities. Naval operations in Canada's maritime environment are exclusively the responsibility of the Royal Canadian Navy. Enforcement of Canada's maritime-related federal statutes may be carried out by peace officers serving with various federal, provincial or even municipal law enforcement agencies.
Although CCG personnel are neither a naval nor law enforcement force, they may operate CCG vessels in support of naval operations, or they may serve an operational role in the delivery of maritime law enforcement and security services in Canadian federal waters by providing a platform for personnel serving with one or more law enforcement agencies. The CCG's responsibility encompasses Canada's coastline. Its vessels and aircraft operate over an area of ocean and inland waters covering approximately.

Mission and mandate

"Canadian Coast Guard services support government priorities and economic prosperity and contribute to the safety, accessibility and security of Canadian waters."
The CCG's mandate is stated in the Oceans Act and the Canada Shipping Act.
The Oceans Act gives the CCG responsibility for providing:
  • aids to navigation;
  • marine communications and traffic management services;
  • icebreaking and ice-management services;
  • channel maintenance;
  • marine search and rescue;
  • marine pollution response; and
  • support of other government departments, boards and agencies by providing ships, aircraft and other services.
The Canada Shipping Act gives the minister powers, responsibilities and obligations concerning:

Predecessor agencies and formation (1867–1962)

Originally a variety of federal departments and even the navy performed the work which the CCG does today. Following Confederation in 1867, the federal government placed many of the responsibilities for maintaining aids to navigation, marine safety, and search and rescue under the Marine Service of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, with some responsibility for waterways resting with the Canal Branch of the Department of Railways and Canals.
Lifeboat stations had been established on the east and west coasts as part of the Canadian Lifesaving Service; the station at Sable Island being one of the first in the nation. On the Pacific coast, the service operated the Dominion Lifesaving Trail which provided a rural communications route for survivors of shipwrecks on the treacherous Pacific Ocean coast off Vancouver Island. These stations maintained, sometimes sporadically in the earliest days, pulling lifeboats crewed by volunteers and eventually motorized lifeboats.
After the Department of Marine and Fisheries was split into separate departments, the Department of Marine continued to take responsibility for the federal government's coastal protection services. During the inter-war period, the Royal Canadian Navy also performed similar duties at a time when the navy was wavering on the point of becoming a civilian organization. Laws related to customs and revenue were enforced by the marine division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A government reorganization in 1936 saw the Department of Marine and its Marine Service, along with several other government departments and agencies, folded into the new Department of Transport.
Following the Second World War, Canada experienced a major expansion in ocean commerce, culminating with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958. The shipping industry was changing throughout eastern Canada and required an expanded federal government role in the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast, as well as an increased presence in the Arctic and Pacific coasts for sovereignty purposes. The government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker decided to consolidate the duties of the Marine Service of the Department of Transport and on January 26, 1962, the Canadian Coast Guard was formed as a subsidiary of DOT. One of the more notable inheritances at the time of formation was the icebreaker, transferred from the Royal Canadian Navy.

Expansion years (1962–1990)

A period of expansion followed the creation of the CCG between the 1960s and the 1980s. The outdated ships the CCG inherited from the Marine Service were scheduled for replacement, along with dozens of new ships for the expanding role of the organization. Built under a complementary national shipbuilding policy which saw the CCG contracts go to Canadian shipyards, the new ships were delivered throughout this golden age of the organization.
In addition to expanded geographic responsibilities in the Great Lakes, the rise in coastal and ocean shipping ranged from new mining shipments such as Labrador iron ore, to increased cargo handling at the nation's major ports, and Arctic development and sovereignty patrols—all requiring additional ships and aircraft. The federal government also began to develop a series of CCG bases near major ports and shipping routes throughout southern Canada, for example Victoria, British Columbia, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and Parry Sound, Ontario.
The expansion of the CCG fleet required new navigation and engineering officers, as well as crewmembers. To meet the former requirement, in 1965 the Canadian Coast Guard College opened on the former navy base at Point Edward, Nova Scotia. By the late 1970s, the college had outgrown the temporary navy facilities and a new campus was opened in the adjacent community of Westmount in 1981.
During the mid-1980s, the long-standing disagreement between the U.S. and Canada over the legal status of the Northwest Passage came to a head after transited the passage in what were asserted by Canada to be Canadian waters and by the U.S. to be international waters. During the period of increased nationalism that followed this event, the Conservative administration of Brian Mulroney announced plans to build several enormous icebreakers, the Polar 8 class which would be used primarily for sovereignty patrols.
However, the proposed Polar 8 class was abandoned during the late 1980s as part of general government budget cuts; in their place, a program of vessel modernizations was instituted. Additional budget cuts to CCG in the mid-1990s following a change in government saw many of CCG's older vessels built during the 1960s and 1970s retired.
From its formation in 1962 until 1995, CCG was the responsibility of the Department of Transport. Both the department and CCG shared complementary responsibilities related to marine safety, whereby DOT had responsibility for implementing transportation policy, regulations and safety inspections, and CCG was operationally responsible for navigation safety and SAR, among others.

Budget cuts and bureaucratic oversight (1994–2005)

Following the 1995 Canadian federal budget, the federal government announced that it was transferring responsibility for the CCG from the Department of Transport to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The reason for placing CCG under DFO was ostensibly to achieve cost savings by amalgamating the two largest civilian vessel fleets within the federal government under a single department.
Arising out of this arrangement, the CCG became ultimately responsible for crewing, operating, and maintaining a larger fleet—both the original CCG fleet before 1995 of dedicated SAR vessels, Navaid tenders, and multi-purpose icebreakers along with DFO's smaller fleet of scientific research and fisheries enforcement vessels, all without any increase in budget—in fact the overall budget for CCG was decreased after absorbing the DFO patrol and scientific vessels.
There were serious stumbling blocks arising out of this reorganization, namely in the different management practices and differences in organizational culture at DFO, versus DOT. DFO is dedicated to conservation and protection of fish through enforcement whereas the CCG's primary focus is marine safety and SAR. There were valid concerns raised within CCG about reluctance on the part of the marine community to ask for assistance from CCG vessels since the CCG was being viewed as aligned with an enforcement department. In the early 2000s, the federal government began to investigate the possibility of remaking CCG as a separate agency, thereby not falling under a specific functional department and allowing more operational independence.

Special operating agency of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (2005–2025)

In one of several reorganizations of federal departments and agencies following the swearing-in of Prime Minister Paul Martin's cabinet on December 12, 2003, several policy and regulatory responsibilities were transferred from the CCG back to the Department of Transport to provide a single point of contact for issues related to marine safety regulation and security. However, the CCG maintained operational responsibility for some of these tasks.
The services offered by the CCG under this arrangement included:
  • Icebreaking and Arctic sovereignty protection
File:JRCC Halifax 01.jpg|thumb|Inside Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax, 2016. The rescue coordination centre is operated by the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force.
  • Marine search and rescue: primary marine SAR vessels, personnel to staff joint rescue coordination centres trained and designated as maritime SAR co-ordinators per the Canada Shipping Act
  • Marine security: monitor vessel movements within Canadian waters, coordinate information to other government departments and agencies regarding 96-hour pre-arrival notification from vessels per the Marine Transportation Security Act, personnel to staff marine security operations centres
  • Environmental response: spill containment and clean-up
  • Marine navigation services including aids to navigation: buoy tending, light station keeping, beacon maintenance, publication of notices to mariners annually and monthly, and notices to shipping as well as broadcasting safety notices to shipping over marine radio frequencies; and the publication of Radio Aids to Marine Navigation and the List of Lights, Buoys & Fog Signals
  • Maritime mobile safety services: marine radio communications, electronic aids to radio navigation systems
  • Vessel traffic services to co-ordinate vessel movement safety, monitoring vessel movements including 96-hour reporting protocol before vessels are permitted to enter Canadian waters
  • Support to fisheries research
  • Offshore, mid-shore and coastal fisheries enforcement
  • Integrated border-enforcement teams with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada Border Services Agency
  • Marine support to other federal government departments
On April 4, 2005, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans designated the CCG as a "special operating agency"—the largest one in the federal government. Although the CCG still fell under the ministerial responsibility of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, it had more autonomy as it was not as tightly integrated within the department. All CCG bases, aids to navigation, vessels, aircraft, and personnel became wholly the responsibility of the Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, who was of assistant deputy ministerial rank. The Commissioner, in turn, was supported by CCG headquarters, which developed a budget for the organization. The arrangement was not unlike the relationship of the RCMP, also headed by a commissioner, toward that organization's parent department, the Department of Public Safety. On December 6, 2019, Mario Pelletier was appointed Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard.
The special operating agency reorganization was different from the past under both DOT and DFO, where regional directors general for these departments were responsible for CCG operations within their respective regions. This reportedly caused problems under DFO that did not occur under DOT. As a special operating agency of DFO, all operations of CCG were directed by the Commissioner, who reported directly to the deputy minister of DFO. Assistant commissioners were responsible for CCG operations within each region and they reported directly to the Commissioner. This management and financial flexibility was enhanced by an increased budget to permit the CCG to acquire new vessels and other assets to assist in its growing role in marine security.
The CCG continued to provide vessels and crews to support the DFO's fisheries science, enforcement, conservation, and protection requirements. The changes resulting in the CCG becoming a special operating agency under DFO did not address some of the key concerns raised by an all-party Parliamentary committee investigating low morale among CCG employees following the transfer from DOT to DFO and budget cuts since 1995. This committee had recommended that the CCG become a separate agency under DOT and that its role be changed to that of an armed, paramilitary organization involved in maritime security by arming its vessels with deck guns, similar to the United States Coast Guard, and that employees be given peace officer status for enforcing federal laws on the oceans and Great Lakes. As a compromise, the CCG partnered with the RCMP and CBSA to create IBETs, which patrol Canadian waters along the Canada–United States border.