Canadian Coast Guard
www.gcc-ccg.gc.ca
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Our OrganizationThe Canadian Coast GuardOur mission is the excellence in marine services |
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The Canadian Coast Guard has become a Special Operating Agency (SOA), while remaining an active member of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. As a SOA, it will help maintain a safe, accessible and sustainable maritime transportation system for the benefit of all Canadians. The Canadian Coast Guard is a national institution with the necessary creativity, commitment and innovation to provide excellent services and to visibly attest to Canada's sovereignty over its waters and its coasts.
The Canadian Coast Guard's mission is set out in the Oceans Act and in the Canada Shipping Act.
The Coast Guard regulates shipping movement along the St. Lawrence; provides, operates and maintains fixed and floating navigational aids; and provides icebreaking and flood-control services. It also undertakes marine search and rescue missions; responds to pollutant spills; and monitors the channel of the St. Lawrence waterway. In addition, it provides commercial shippers with essential information on elements such as the presence of shoals and ice conditions, to ensure their safe transit. Finally, it ensures the safety of boaters, protects the marine environment and facilitates marine trade and sustainable development. It shares several of these mandates with numerous partners, including Transport Canada, National Defence, the Transportation Safety Board and Environment Canada. These activities are all closely tied to the St. Lawrence, which flows through the entire Quebec Region and contains more than 300 km of dredged channel. The channel with its many natural obstacles, is subject to tide and to sometimes unpredictable currents and winds. Although covered in ice from December to April, the St. Lawrence, which stretches 1,600 km from the Atlantic to Montréal, remains passable 12 months a year. Some 90,000 ship movements are recorded each year between Sept-Îles and Montréal. More than 55,000 pleasure craft use the waterways of Quebec, and the Coast Guard receives 1,300 calls for help every year. There is also intense harbour activity since four of Canada's six largest ports are located in the Region.
In the Québec Region, the Coast Guard has a variety of equipment reflecting the diversity of its activities, in particular:
In addition, the Coast Guard is present throughout Quebec:
The Coast Guard is responsible for the buoyage of waterways, on the Saguenay, Richelieu, Ottawa and Des Prairies Rivers and on lake Saint-Louis and Lake of two mountains. This involves installing and removing nearly 1,500 summer and winter buoys each year, maintaining 600 visual and electronic aids on shore and operating four land-based reference centres deploying a satellite based differential global positioning system (DGPS). In addidion, the Coast Guard offers 27 automatic lighthouses. Helicopter and icebreaker patrols, as well as video images from cameras, radars or satellites, enable the Ice Management Centre to supervise the movement and concentration of ice from Cabot Strait right up to Montréal. Ice retention structures are built and icebreakers clear ice as necessary to prevent flooding due to ice jams, which could form at any time, in particular on Lake St. Pierre and in the Montréal and Québec regions. The icebreakers also facilitate the passage of commercial ships, escorting vessels if necessary. Marine Communications and Traffic Services centres manage ship traffic as far as Montréal and constantly monitor distress frequencies. They broadcast information on weather and navigation conditions as well as safety notices. They also trigger the alert and warning network for marine incidents. In emergencies, the Marine Rescue Centre in Québec co-ordinates search and rescue operations. The five rescue strations and six seasonal rescue posts, which have specialized watercraft, are also available to assist. In spite of this, marine accidents may cause pollutant spills. The Coast Guard therefore develops standards for environmental emergency planning as well as training programs and exercises. It also monitors spill response operations and takes action when shipowners fail to take the appropriate measures to limit the damage.
Throughout its long history, the Coast Guard has been able to adapt to many technological and socioeconomic changes while continuing to provide quality service to the marine community. It will continue to do so, in particular by implementing new, state-of-the-art ways of providing services, relying on partnerships and taking maximum advantage of new positioning and data transmission technologies. In particular, in partnership with a number of scientific institutions, the Coast Guard is developing a new area of activity: research support aimed at optimizing its current fleet profile. Canadian Coast Guard Base, |
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