Location: National
Key Messages:
- Marine shipping has never been safer in Canada. Canada’s strong marine safety regime has improved significantly over the last 25 years. It is built on more than 100 regulations, 30 Acts, and international agreements and commitments, which are primarily focused on preventing accidents from happening.
- The Government of Canada is taking concrete steps to protect the marine environment while supporting economic growth. The Ocean’s Protection Plan is building on existing work and expanding to address remaining gaps in marine incident prevention, marine situational awareness, emergency preparedness and recovery, ecosystem protection, and fostering new partnerships with Indigenous and coastal communities.
- Transport Canada (TC) will continue working with our partners to implement measures to address environmental and marine shipping related concerns, while also enhancing the safety and efficiency of the marine sector.
- Bill C-33 would optimize traffic management at Canada Port Authorities, including anchorages, and would ease congestion by facilitating investment into inland ports. It would ensure structured relationships between ports and Indigenous and local communities to foster ongoing dialogue and inform decision making.
- Canada’s Pacific Gateway, which consists of the Ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, is critical to our country’s economic health. More than two thirds (2/3) of essential goods shipped by Canada in containers flow through the West Coast.
- The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that Canada has sufficient container capacity to mitigate supply disruptions and effectively transport products critical to Canada’s economy.
Summary of Issue / Background:
- Canada is a maritime nation with more coastline than in any country in the world. Marine shipping is an important part of the world’s supply chain, and something that Canadians rely on daily.
- The Government of Canada is committed to the safety and security of Canada’s marine transportation system. A critical part of that system is a flexible, robust, transparent, fair, and consistent enforcement program that keeps Canadians safe.
- The Government of Canada works with the maritime industry, coastal and Indigenous communities, scientists, the international community, and Canadians to continue to strengthen Canada’s world-leading marine safety system.
- One of TC’s priorities is keeping boaters and seafarers safe in Canada while protecting Canada’s coasts. To do that, TC develops and implements policies and regulations; administers the Canada Shipping Act; oversees both recreational and commercial vessel safety; and partners with other federal government departments and agencies to improve Canada’s marine safety and security system.
- The Oceans Protections Plan (OPP) is the biggest investment ever made to protect Canada’s coasts, which places a strong emphasis on collaboration with provinces and territories, Indigenous organizations, marine industries, environmental organizations, coastal communities, and the public. These investments are making Canada’s waters safer and better protected than ever before.
- The Government of Canada continues work on important OPP initiatives, including Proactive Vessel Management, addressing the Cumulative Effects of Marine Shipping, and Enhanced Marine Situational Awareness, a platform co-developed with Indigenous partners.
- Additional recent improvements include new regulations under the Canada Marine Act for enhanced safety and enforcement in Canada’s marine transportation system. These regulations allow for enforcement officers to issue administrative monetary penalties, or fines to individuals, corporations, or ships, for violations of the Act and its associated regulations. This provides enforcement officers with more flexibility in dealing with situations where rules or standards are not being followed.
- TC also made mandatory certain environmental measures for the cruise ship industry. For example, to prohibit the discharge of greywater and treated sewage within three nautical miles from shore; strengthen the treatment of greywater with sewage; and reporting compliance with these measures in Canadian waters, upon request.
- Vessel traffic management measures including speed restrictions are in place throughout much of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on Canada’s West Coast, to protect the endangered Southern Resident killer whales and North Atlantic right whales during peak season.
- TC has also recently taken steps to increase its oversight of small tugs and to educate owners and operators about the safety requirements for these vessels. The Department has published the proposed Marine Safety Management System Regulations in the Canada Gazette Part I. These regulations will require that tug operators have a safety management system in place and require them to apply to TC to obtain a certificate for their company and the vessels they operate.
- Legislative amendments proposed under the Strengthening the Port System and Railway Safety in Canada Act aim to amend current legislation and modernize the way Canada’s marine transportation systems operate, while removing systemic barriers. Specifically, this Bill (C-33) would amend several Acts to strengthen the port system, marine security in Canada, including to address issues identified in TC’s Ports Modernization Review, completed in 2022.
- Marine transportation is among the safest, low-emission, and most cost-effective ways to move goods. Under Canada’s Emissions Reduction Plan, the Government of Canada committed to developing a national action plan to enable the marine sector to reduce its emissions. Transport Canada is leading this work, which involves exploring decarbonization pathways for the sector, and identifying concrete short-term actions to pursue cleaner fuel alternatives and electrification.
- Canada is also looking to the future with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s proposed the construction and operation of a new three-berth marine container terminal located at Roberts Bank in Delta, approximately 35 km south of Vancouver, B.C. The proposed project (Roberts Bank Terminal 2) would provide an additional 2.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units of container capacity, per year, at Roberts Bank once it is fully operational in the mid-2030s.