Question Period Note: Canadian Coast Guard Environmental Reponse

How is the Canadian Coast Guard reacting to environmental incidents in Canadian waters?

• The Canadian Coast Guard’s Environmental Response program is responsible for ensuring an appropriate response to marine pollution incidents in Canadian waters.
• The Coast Guard works collaboratively with Indigenous and coastal communities, municipalities and federal partners when creating and managing response plans for pollution incidents.

• The Canadian Coast Guard (Coast Guard) Environmental Response (ER) program is the operational arm of the Government of Canada responsible for ensuring an appropriate response to ship-source and mystery-source marine pollution incidents in Canadian waters.
• The scope of the Coast Guard’s response is not limited to oil spills, but covers the more broadly defined “Marine Pollution Incidents”, as written in the Canada Shipping Act. This includes Hazardous and Noxious Substances spills, or spills of substances that would degrade or alter the quality of waters to an extent that is detrimental to their use by humans.
• The ER program provides a system (policies, procedures, personnel, and equipment) to command responses to marine pollution incidents occurring in Canadian waters with an objective to minimise the risk to public safety, environmental, and economic impacts.
• The ER program addresses oversight of the polluter’s actions, spill preparedness (equipment, planning, training, exercising) and spill response (pollution assessment, mitigation, containment and collection) as well as spill incident management. The ER program integrates science and local Indigenous knowledge into preparedness, response, planning and incident management activities.
• Determination of the lead agency for spills in Canada refers to the source, not location of the spill.
• The Coast Guard is responsible for ship-source spills, mystery-source spills, and spills at oil handling facilities during loading and unloading of vessels.
• In the event that the polluter is unknown, unwilling, or unable to respond to their pollution event, the Coast Guard will ensure an appropriate response is achieved by contracting resources or responding themselves.
• There are trained ER officers in all Coast Guard regions with shore-side staffed facilities with pollution countermeasures equipment. There are approximately 80 response equipment depot sites strategically located across Canada and on Coast Guard vessels. Heavier equipment such as pollution response vessels, skimmers and sweep systems are at the Coast Guard bases across Canada.
• In addition, an industry funded pollution response capacity exists whereby potential polluters pay for the cost of preparedness for the environmental risk posed by their operations. These costs support the capacity of the Response Organizations. This preparedness is established and maintained by certified Response Organizations who can be contracted by polluters to provide oil spill response services in the event of a marine pollution incident.
• Canada has adopted the "polluter pay principle" in legislation and requires polluters to pay for the cost of cleanup and pollution damage. The Coast Guard’s costs with respect to the response may also be recovered from the polluter.

• As the on-water, federal entity responsible for ship-source oil pollution and maritime search and rescue, Coast Guard was ready to respond throughout Hurricane Fiona.
• Coast Guard responded to multiple reports of sunken vessels, and vessels lifted on the shore, and is taking steps to contain and remediate any threat of pollution in affected areas.
• Coast Guard continues to support requests for assistance including the provision of helicopters to support environmental surveying and aerial infrastructure assessments in Atlantic Canada.