Question Period Note: Pachena and Carmanah lightstations - Relocation of Canadian Coast Guard Employees

• The Canadian Coast Guard uses aids to navigation to help mariners confirm their position, stay inside navigable channels, and avoid marine hazards.
• A 2024 risk assessment revealed safety concerns at two lightstations in British Columbia: Carmanah Point and Pachena Point, which are both located close to the slopes on unstable ground. Both lightstations are at increased vulnerability and risk of slope failure due to these soil conditions.
• As a result, the Canadian Coast Guard has made the difficult decision to cease the lightkeeper functions at both the Carmanah Point and Pachena Point lightstations due to these safety risks.
• The Canadian Coast Guard is committed to ensuring the safety of its personnel.
• There will be no impact to mariners who use the lightstations to confirm their position, stay inside navigable channels, and avoid marine hazards. The navigational aids at both sites are fully automated lights that have worked effectively since 2003.

• Traditional lighthouses are a large part of Canada's identity, history, culture, and landscape. The Government of Canada has designated many lighthouses under the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act and transferred them to new owners across Canada. This special status recognizes the historic importance of heritage lighthouses to Canadian communities.
• The Canadian Coast Guard has a network of 17,000 aids to navigation across Canada, including lightstations, beacons, range lights, and several types of floating buoys. Aids to navigation are designed for and calibrated to deliver on specific operational requirements.
• The Carmanah and Pachena Point lightstations, located on the west coast of Vancouver Island, were previously staffed with full time Canadian Coast Guard personnel.
• The lightstations at both sites are situated near the steep slopes of the shoreline and have undergone a geohazard risk assessment, led by Fisheries and Oceans Canada Real Property. Due to these geohazard assessments done at both sites, as well as recent seismic activities, there were site safety concerns that required immediate action by the Department, including the Canadian Coast Guard and Fisheries and Oceans Canada Real Property, to ensure the safety of the full-time, on-site Canadian Coast Guard personnel. There are no operational impacts to the aids to navigation function at either site.
• Carmanah Point and Pachena Point lightstations hold cultural and historical interest to the people of British Columbia and Canada, and especially to those who live in the area and hikers using the West Coast Trail. The Canadian Coast Guard is working with other departments and stakeholders, who also use the two sites for non-Canadian Coast Guard related purposes, to plan next steps.

If pressed on support to mariners
• We continue to keep mariners safe on the British Columbia coast with more than 3,500 other navigational aids, 15 lifeboat stations, four inshore rescue bases, and five environmental response depots.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard will continue to consider long-term options for the future of both sites. In the meantime, the lightkeepers from both sites have been relocated to other lightstations in British Columbia.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard will continue to evaluate modernizing the delivery of navigational services at lightstation sites and to explore options for the preservation of Heritage lightstations.