Government of Canada introduces new measures and enters into new partnerships for safer maritime navigation and emergency response through the Oceans Protection Plan

Canadian nautical charts in the GeoGarage platform

From Transport Canada

Canada’s coasts support Indigenous and coastal communities, enable international trade, are home to precious ecosystems, and play a key role in strengthening the economy and growing our middle class.
The Government of Canada’s $1.5 billion Oceans Protection Plan—the largest investment ever made to protect our coasts and waterways—is building a world-leading marine safety system and will lead to cleaner and safer coasts.

Today, the Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport announced four measures to help protect Canada’s waters and coastlines as part of the Oceans Protection Plan.
These measures are:
Providing $110 million over five years for the Canadian Hydrographic Service to chart 23 high-priority commercial ports and near-shore areas along all three coasts to create safer navigation for mariners.
This new investment will fill important gaps in critical areas across the country that currently have limited and out-of-date navigational information, and give mariners high-resolution electronic navigation charts, navigational products and data for increased safety.
To date, surveys of eight out of the 23 ports have been completed.

Adding seven additional coastal communities (nine total) to test a new information system showing where ship traffic is located—and other essential maritime information—as part of the Enhanced Maritime Situational Awareness initiative.

The selection of a contractor to build a system that can provide near-real time data on local ship traffic will be one of the largest agile procurement projects in the Government of Canada’s history.
Indigenous and coastal communities, Transport Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard will work together to award the contract.
Through the $62.5 million invested in the Enhanced Maritime Situational Awareness initiative, the Government of Canada will make $9.8 million available over two years to support the implementation of these pilot project communities and work with them to develop, test and evaluate the new system.
Awarding an initial contract to Hercules SLR of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, to supply the Canadian Coast Guard with two vessel-based emergency tow kits, plus equipment and training.
This initial contract is valued at more than $180,000, and is part of a plan to install tow kits and related equipment on all large Canadian Coast Guard vessels, including five vessels on the West Coast.
The initial contract includes options for up to 62 additional tow kits and related equipment.
Allocating $7.2 million over five years in the Marine Weather Information Services Demonstration Project.
This project will deploy five smart buoys (two on the west coast and three on the east coast) that will produce data for tailored weather forecasts.
These smart buoys will have innovative high resolution weather prediction systems that will enhance marine forecasting and improve marine navigation and safety for mariners.