Oceans Protection Plan

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Mandate

The Oceans Protection Plan (OPP) Group is responsible for implementing the five-year plan launched in 2016 to further improve marine safety and responsible shipping, protect Canada's marine environment, and supports Indigenous and coastal communities.

The Plan includes over 50 initiatives across the following four pillars:

• World-Leading Marine Safety System – encompasses initiatives to prevent incidents and accidents while enabling rapid, science-based response actions in the event of an oil spill.
• Healthy Marine Ecosystems – designed to preserve and restore marine ecosystems vulnerable to increased marine shipping and development.
• Indigenous Partnerships – working with Indigenous coastal communities to co-develop and co-manage emergency response capacity, marine training, and governance strategies across Canada.
• Stronger Evidence Base – includes investments in oil spill research and spill response methods to ensure that decisions made in emergencies are evidence-based.

The Plan is being delivered by Transport Canada (TC) in close collaboration with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Natural Resources Canada.

The OPP aims to address gaps in Canada’s marine safety regime and capabilities identified by external reviews, industry, stakeholders, and other federal departments and agencies. Canada has been playing an active role in developing more stringent international standards related to safety and protection of the marine environment in collaboration with domestic and international partners. In addition, Canada has also been working domestically to implement faster industry response times to spills in the marine environment, to include community participation in industry response and to develop new, more protective Arctic navigation regimes.

Robert Dick

Assistant Deputy Minister, Pacific Region

  Bio

Robert Dick - Assistant Deputy Minister, Pacific Region

Based in Vancouver, Robert Dick is the Assistant Deputy Minister for the Pacific Region, overseeing all of Transport Canada’s programs and operations in the region.

Before joining the department’s team in British Columbia, Robert served in Ottawa as the Director General of Air Policy. In that position, he was responsible for Canada’s Permanent Mission to the International Civil Aviation Organization, international air policy, and domestic aviation sector policies related to air carriers, airports and air navigation services.

Robert has nine years' experience working in various roles in the Privy Council Office. He has also worked at Public Safety Canada on national cyber security and western economic diversification.