Canadian Coast Guard
<% else %>A History of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services
by Thomas E. Appleton
Post War Development
The period immediately following the war was one of adjustment and consolidation, and few changes were made until the smoke of strife had cleared away. Thereafter, following the national trend, the Department entered on the most rapid period of development in the history of its long service to the marine life of Canada.
In March 1949, Newfoundland came into Confederation and, with the added responsibility of many thousands of miles of coastline, including the long rocky shore of Labrador, there were extra duties for our ships. Although Canada had maintained some of the main Newfoundland lights since early in the nineteenth century, there were many other Newfoundland lights which had been supplied by schooners and local craft.
CCGS Beauport, a sounding vessel employed in the St. Lawrence ship channel. Note the horizontal bar which is lowered for proof sweeping.
The completion of the Seaway brought about an increased flow of international shipping to the lakes, both in numbers and in size, and a corresponding need for more aids to navigation. The assumption, by Canada, of a share in the cost of ocean weather stations involved the acquisition of special ships in the Pacific, and a growing necessity to modernize the search and rescue organization involved a new concept of marine service.
Undoubtedly, the greatest change of all took place in the Arctic where the great circle route to Russia was overshadowed by liabilities in the period of the cold war and an uneasy contemplation of the dangers of a hot one. The subsequent construction of the Distant Early Warning defences, and the necessity of a supply system in support, opened up the Arctic to a new technology which was followed by a great wave of interest in location of mineral resources.
All these matters, coming to fruition in a time of renaissance in every sphere of Canadian life, caused a quickening in the life and times of the Department of Transport. Although the Department had been formed in 1936 to bring marine and canal responsibilities under a single ministry, these were not immediately fused internally. There was a Directorate of Marine Services, which was certainly a large component of the Department, but it did not include the supervision of canals or of the St. Lawrence Ship Channel which, with other directorates, reported independently to the Deputy Minister. In the nineteen fifties it was decided to place all marine activities under an Assistant Deputy Minister and, with this decision, the disparate organization of an older period began to take more modern shape.
Today, the original concept of the agency system of the Confederation period is working in a much wider way. Marine Services Headquarters at Ottawa is more truly a central authority, concerned mainly with policy and finance, which delegates operational and administrative supervision to various areas of the country. This system, with appropriate financial and policy framework, is managed by regional directors who supervise all aspects of the work of Marine Services. At the time of writing the Maritime and Pacific Regions have been established, and others will follow.
Other changes came about as a result of the 1959 Royal Commission on Transportation, the MacPherson Commission and the passing of the National Transportation Act which brought a new environmental approach. No longer inhibited by the physical boundaries between water, air and land transportation, the Act provides the means to formulate comprehensive national policies. Under this Act the former Board of Transport Commissioners, the Air Transport Board and the Canadian Maritime Commission are now merged to form the Canadian Transport Commission. With representation from shipping, aviation, rail and road vehicle regulatory bodies, and those in connection with commodity pipe-lines, the new Commission is in a position to undertake research into all government involvement in the movement of goods and people.
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