Question Period Note: Canadian Hydrographic Service Print-on-Demand Project

Canadian Hydrographic Service Print-on-Demand Project

Nautical charts are an important part of the system that ensures safe navigation in Canadian waters.

The Canadian Hydrographic Service continues to test new ideas and find innovative ways to provide its products to mariners.

The Department’s priority when disseminating its nautical charts is safe navigation.

• Under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 (Navigation Safety Regulations, 2020), ships of 100 gross tonnage or more are required to carry official Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) charts and publications for the intended voyage, and to keep them up to date. Vessels of less than 100 tons are exempt from this part of the regulation if the person in charge of navigation has sufficient local knowledge of the area in which they are navigating.
• CHS is a part of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Science sector.
• In 2015, CHS launched a print-on-demand (POD) pilot project to trial an innovative way to distribute charts to clients. Through the project, POD dealers would pay a fee to access CHS’ print-ready files, then print and sell CHS official nautical charts to the public.
• POD dealers were to provide end users with charts of equal quality to CHS’ own charts so that Canada’s commitments under international law are honored. POD dealers were able to sell these charts at the prices set in the 1994 Nautical Charts and Related Publications Fees Order (the Fees Order). POD charts accounted for 30 per cent of the 55,000 charts sold in 2019.
 During the first portion of the pandemic, CHS waived royalties paid by POD dealers to encourage them to print more charts, as opposed to generating them within CHS. This temporary measure was active between March 16, 2020, to December 31, 2020.
• In June 2021, an internal assessment of the POD pilot project recommended discontinuing the pilot project and repatriating all printing and shipping of charts to CHS.
• In compliance with the terms of their agreements during the pilot, POD dealers based outside of Canada were advised of the cancellation of the project in early December 2021, as five of the seven agreements had expired or were due to expire on December 31, 2021. Domestic distributors were advised in early January 2022 that an extension to March 31, 2022, would be offered in order to provide time to transition out of the POD pilot. These dealers will still be able to purchase charts from CHS and sell them to the public through the CHS Dealer Network. CHS will continue to engage dealers on the rationale for this decision as well as any other changes to its chart production and distribution processes.

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