The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) is a Special Operating Agency within Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). Unlike the multimission U.S. Coast Guard, the CCG is neither a law enforcement organization nor a unified branch of the Canadian armed forces. Instead, the CCG operates the Canadian government’s fleet of civilian vessels to patrol the world’s longest coastline and operate in a country with more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
Although its history and heritage trace back to the 1700s, the modern day CCG was founded on 26 January 1962. In 2005, it became part of the DFO as one of a series of cost-cutting measures by the Canadian government designed to place all of the government’s civilian vessels under one department. This efficiency was accomplished when the DFO’s fleet of science vessels and the Fisheries Conservation and Protection Fleet were absorbed by the CCG.
Today, the DFO is led by Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard Dominic LeBlanc. Day-to-day management of the CCG is the responsibility of its chief executive officer, Jody Thomas. Thomas made history on 1 January 2015 when she was appointed the first female commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard. As chief executive officer of the CCG, she holds a commission in the Canadian Naval Reserve.
Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, the CCG has a fleet of more than 100 vessels and helicopters and is administratively divided into three regions across Canada: the Atlantic Region, Central and Arctic Region, and Western Region. According to its official website, CCG missions include aids to navigation, icebreaking, search and rescue (SAR), maritime security, environmental response, marine communications and traffic services, scientific research, and waterways management.
On an average day, the Canadian Coast Guard:
• Saves 15 lives
• Assists 52 people in 27 SAR cases
• Manages 1,233 vessel movements
• Carries out 11 fisheries patrols
• Supports 8 scientific surveys
• Supports 3 hydrographic missions
• Deals with 3 reported pollution events
• Surveys 3.5 kilometers of navigation channel bottom
To enhance its ability to conduct operations, the CCG is augmented by the nearly 4,000 volunteers of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (CCGA). Founded in 1978, the nonprofit CCGA is organized into five different regions, with a volunteer fleet of more than 1,130 vessels. The primary missions of the CCGA are recreational boating safety and SAR.
The CCG also operates the Canadian Coast Guard College in Westmount, Nova Scotia. Since its founding in 1965, the college has graduated more than 1,200 officers and is billed by its website as “a world leader in the field of maritime studies.”
Unfortunately, the CCG shares an unwanted similarity with the U.S. Coast Guard—an aging fleet of vessels after decades of chronic underfunding. Most of the CCG’s larger vessels are better suited for service as museum ships than patrolling Canada’s waterways.
According to a 2016 report, the CCG’s large vessels averaged 35 years of age, and less than 12 percent were in either new or good condition. A staggering 85.7 percent of the large vessels required major system repairs, while another 2.9 percent required significant equipment or system refurbishment. Moreover, this crucial report notes, “for such a critical piece of transportation infrastructure, the Canadian Coast Guard is not receiving the political attention or the administrative and financial resources it requires.”
Besides conducting joint operations on their borders, particularly SAR and law enforcement missions on the Great Lakes, the CCG and the U.S. Coast Guard are members of several important Coast Guard-related international bodies, including the North Atlantic and North Pacific Coast Guard Forums. The North Atlantic Coast Guard Forum was founded in 2007 “to increase cooperation amongst member countries on matters related to maritime safety and security in the region,” while the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum was founded in 2000 for similar reasons.
The relationship between the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards is a healthy one and serves as a model for coast guard–to–coast guard cooperation around the globe. That relationship will be enhanced significantly upon the acquisition of a newer fleet of vessels.