Environmental recovery from ship-source marine oil spills: Discussion paper

Purpose

This discussion paper seeks feedback on elements of a proposed Recovery Framework for environmental recovery from marine ship-source oil spills. This is to help ensure that the Framework reflects the diverse perspectives of the various response partners.

Introduction

Canada has a robust marine response regime to address marine pollution spills and, through the Oceans Protection Plan (OPP), Canada is taking steps to strengthen how it manages marine oil spills from ships. Environmental recovery is an important part of this work. The Government of Canada is developing a federal framework to guide efforts to support environmental recovery from marine oil spills from ships.

Emergency management consists of 4 phases that are linked together and take place before, during and after a marine oil spill incident. These 4 phases protect the health, safety and welfare of people, and limit damage to property and the environment. They are:

• Prevention: Actions taken to reduce or eliminate the risk of an incident, such as developing regulations and best practices for shipping oil
• Preparedness: Measures taken to prepare for an incident such as planning, training and maintaining spill response equipment
• Response: Actions taken immediately before, during or after an incident to manage impacts or to prevent the incident from happening or getting worse
• Recovery: Actions taken to assess, monitor and repair damage in affected areas. Recovery begins during the response and continues afterwards

Depending on where and when the oil was spilled, even small spills may require some environmental recovery efforts. Implementing environmental recovery can be challenging as it involves several distinct but overlapping activities, and this requires a diversity of expertise and authorities across departments and jurisdictions – including provinces, territories, industry and Indigenous communities.

As part of the Oceans Protection Plan, the Government of Canada is developing a recovery framework to better address the impacts of ship-source marine oil spills. The Recovery Framework would apply from coast to coast to coast, covering Canada's oceans, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Recovery Framework could be expanded in line with the evolution of the proposed scope of other federal initiatives such as the Marine Pollution, Preparedness, Response and Recovery (MPPRR) Initiative.

The federal Recovery Framework will be designed to further strengthen Canada's existing spill incident management systems. It will promote improved coordination and collaboration between various recovery partners, including federal government departments and agencies, provinces and territories, Indigenous governments, communities and organizations, municipal governments and coastal communities, marine industry, shipowners, response organizations and others. In the event of an oil spill from a ship in the Canadian marine environment, the proposed Recovery Framework would clarify roles and responsibilities of all groups involved.

The Recovery Framework will:

• help strengthen Canada's marine oil spill management regime by addressing existing gaps in federal policy
• support environmental protection as ports are expanded to strengthen Canada's economy
• help address Indigenous peoples' concerns about the long-term impacts of marine oil spills that remain after the response has finished
• support the consistent application of federal authorities in carrying out recovery efforts
• support collaboration with provincial and territorial governments, Indigenous peoples, local communities and others including the marine industry and shipowners
• bring Canada in line with international best practices

Guiding principles

Federal involvement, coordination and accountability: There will be appropriate federal involvement in recovery efforts. In most cases, a federal department or agency will coordinate and oversee the planning and carrying out of recovery efforts in collaboration with, and accountable to, its recovery partners – unless it is agreed that a partner organization is better-placed to lead.

Evidence-based advice: Recovery will use scientific and technical advice, braided with Indigenous Science and Traditional Knowledge.

Working with Indigenous peoples: The Government of Canada recognizes Indigenous peoples as important contributors to effective recovery efforts and will work closely with First Nations, Métis and Inuit, as well as Modern Treaty and Self-Government Agreement Holders in the spirit of renewed Nation-to-Nation, government-to-government and Inuit-to-Crown relationships.

Polluter-pays principle: Under the Marine Liability Act, when marine oil pollution comes from a ship, the Shipowner is held strictly liable for the damage, which includes reasonable costs of environmental recovery actions that have been or will be taken. This means that they are financially responsible even if the marine oil spill is accidental or they are not at fault. Depending on the size of their vessel as well as the type and activities of the ship, shipowners are required to maintain insurance and provide proof that they can meet their financial obligations. The goal of the polluter-pays principle is to reduce the burden on the public to pay for the losses and damage caused by specific incidents.

Transparent, inclusive and open communication: Recovery efforts can occur over a long period of time. Members of affected Indigenous and local communities, as well as the general public, will be kept informed of the recovery progress. Data and information will be made available using existing mechanisms where possible, while respecting the protocols, protections and agreements governing knowledge shared by Indigenous peoples about their territories.

Proposed definition

For the purposes of the proposed Recovery Framework, recovery refers to the return of an area impacted by a marine pollution incident to a normal functioning state as informed by pre-incident conditions. Recovery could involve both natural processes and human actions.

This definition has 3 main parts:

• Normal functioning state: Returning the plants, animals and habitats in an area to a state that is similar to how they existed before the pollution incident happened
• Informed by pre-incident conditions: Pre-incident conditions are those that existed in an area before the damage from an incident happened; they serve as an important reference for recovery efforts
  • Returning an environment to pre-incident conditions will be the main goal of the recovery process; however, in some cases this goal may be challenging to achieve because:
    • there may be limited data on the condition of an area before an incident
    • it may not be possible to fully return an area to its pre-incident condition
    • there could be differing perspectives on appropriate recovery targets
  • If it is not possible to return an area to pre-incident conditions, the goal will still be to return the area to a normal functioning state
• Through natural processes or human actions or both: Both natural recovery and human actions may be used in the recovery process
  • There may be a point where human actions do more environmental harm than good, and at this point allowing an area to recover through natural processes may be more beneficial or effective

Elements considered as part of recovery

The proposed Recovery Framework focuses on efforts to recover the environment back to a normal functioning state, recognizing that the environmental impacts from a marine oil spill from a ship can have a range of impacts, including on:

• the environment: Physical, chemical and biological parts of the environment may be affected by a marine oil spill
• human health: There may be human health risks from exposure to leftover environmental contamination or from the activities that were part of the incident response
• social and economic well-being: Because of environmental damage, communities may suffer social and economic hardships following a marine oil spill, such as the loss of tourism or closure of commercial fisheries, due to contamination

The direct or indirect impact of a marine oil spill on each of these elements can vary based on the nature and severity of the spill and the available response capacity.

Carrying out recovery efforts

Recovery efforts need careful planning, organization and adequate resources. Efforts must also be flexible to allow for recovery work to adapt and respond to changing conditions over time. Taking a collaborative approach can help avoid:

• further impacts: when improperly planned or coordinated actions could cause more harm to the affected area
• duplication of efforts: when 2 parties carry out the same activity
• contradictory efforts: when certain recovery efforts may negatively affect the success of other efforts

Key functions and roles

Several functions or roles are needed to support the success of recovery efforts. Some functions may first come into play during the response to an incident and continue through recovery efforts. Others may be needed only once recovery efforts have started. These functions and roles are introduced below.

The Shipowner: Under the Marine Liability Act, the Shipowner is liable for paying for eligible reasonable costs related to the damage caused by a marine oil spill.

The Responsible Party: The Responsible Party would be responsible for carrying out recovery activities and would be identified during the incident response. When the Shipowner has been identified, and is willing and able to participate, they are the Responsible Party. If the Shipowner is unknown, or if they are unwilling or unable to participate, the role of the Responsible Party would be filled by the best-placed person or agency. Responsibilities of the Responsible Party include:

• drafting recovery plans and carrying them out
• providing regular progress updates to the Recovery Lead and Recovery Advisory Group

The Recovery Lead: The Recovery Lead would have the overall responsibility for recovery efforts, coordinating the involvement of all participants involved. The role of the Recovery Lead could be filled by the incident management system that is typically in place in a region (for example, Unified Command), or it could be filled by a federal department or another designated agency or group. Responsibilities of the Recovery Lead would include:

• coordinating a damage assessment (during incident response) in collaboration with the existing incident management system
• making decisions throughout recovery, including deciding whether recovery efforts are needed
• supporting the Responsible Party as they take recovery action

The Recovery Advisory Group: If recovery efforts are needed, a Recovery Advisory Group, made up of a diverse group of experts, would then be formed to provide advice to support the recovery. While this group would strive to provide advice by consensus, if agreement cannot be reached, the group's differing views will be communicated to the Recovery Lead for decision-making. It could include representatives from:

• federal departments and agencies
• Indigenous governments, organizations and communities
• provincial, territorial and local governments
• academia
• environmental non-governmental organizations
• shipowner, depending on the region

Membership of the group would evolve over time as recovery efforts progress and different expertise is needed.

Some important information that the Recovery Advisory Group would provide includes:

• knowledge about resources and practices impacted by the marine oil spill
• advice on selection of short- and long-term recovery objectives and recovery targets
• actions that can be taken to achieve those objectives and targets

Federal role: Regardless of whether the Government of Canada is the Recovery Lead for a particular incident, federal departments and agencies would coordinate efforts as appropriate, and promote compliance with federal laws, regulations and mandates throughout the recovery process.

Proposed environmental recovery process

Recovery efforts would start as early as possible after an incident has occurred. In many cases, recovery actions, such as sampling, could take place at the same time as response actions. Typically, recovery efforts would continue after the incident response has ended, because recovery deals with longer-term damage from an incident. This recovery process is a general outline that could be adapted for each incident, considering incident-specific factors such as location, weather, response agencies, owner of the ship and pre-existing or new agreements or arrangements that include recovery (such as those negotiated through Reconciliation Framework Agreements). The proposed process involves the following steps:

Before and throughout recovery: sampling and monitoring

When necessary, initial sampling may take place during the incident response to provide important information for estimating the degree of damage that has occurred in an area. This is called a damage assessment. In places with limited information about the environmental conditions before a marine oil spill, sampling can help reveal what the environment was like before it was impacted. This can be done by sampling in nearby areas that were unaffected by the spill, or by sampling in an area before damage from the spill has set in. In some locations, there may be existing information on pre-spill conditions collected through other programs, which could be used to complement the initial sampling efforts and provide more information for the damage assessment.

Ongoing monitoring may provide information on the impacts of the recovery efforts and the trends in the environment over time. Monitoring could be supported by ongoing sampling, environmental measurements and observation. The information gained from a monitoring plan would help track how much recovery has taken place and could show:

• whether recovery efforts are working
• whether new or different actions and approaches should be tried
• when recovery is complete and recovery efforts can stop

The Responsible Party would hire qualified professionals to conduct sampling and monitoring. The results of the sampling and monitoring would be reported to the Recovery Advisory Group, who could advise on ongoing recovery actions and next steps, and to the Recovery Lead, who would track and report results.

Step 1: Decide whether recovery efforts are needed

The first step in the proposed recovery process would be to decide whether recovery efforts are needed. An evaluation and a decision on the need for a recovery phase would be made for each spill. This evaluation would be made as early as possible during the incident response. The Recovery Lead would make this decision supported by the damage assessment and often considering initial sampling (depending on the circumstances of the marine oil spill). This decision may change as new information becomes available.

Step 2: Form the Recovery Advisory Group

Once it has been decided that recovery efforts are needed, a Recovery Advisory Group would be formed. It could be formed as a new group or based on one already formed as part of the response. The Recovery Advisory Group would have an initial meeting on the situation, discuss their roles and responsibilities, and determine whether others should be added to fill knowledge gaps.

Step 3: Plan the recovery effort

The Responsible Party would begin drafting a recovery plan as soon as the damage assessment supports the need for recovery efforts. The recovery plan would be shaped by information from initial sampling, ongoing monitoring, the damage assessment and input from the Recovery Advisory Group.

The recovery plan would guide the overall recovery process by identifying information, including:

• targets for parts of the environment that need to recover, such as water, sediment, plants, animals and their habitats, as well as related human health, social and/or economic factors
• actions that would be taken to achieve the recovery targets
• monitoring that would be done to measure progress towards those targets
• who would lead specific actions as part of the recovery efforts
• how affected communities would be notified, and how progress on recovery efforts would be communicated

The Recovery Advisory Group would review the recovery plan to make sure that it is complete, supported by best practices, Western science, and Indigenous science and Traditional Knowledge, and would be likely to achieve the recovery objectives. The recovery plan is meant to be flexible – it could be changed or updated with new actions and approaches as new knowledge becomes available. The Recovery Advisory Group would review ongoing monitoring data and will help plan the next steps.

Step 4: Take recovery actions

The Responsible Party would take actions as described in the recovery plan. These actions may also be carried out by qualified professionals, including those from government agencies, Indigenous governments, communities or organizations. If known and able, the Shipowner would be held liable in accordance with the Marine Liability Act for the actions taken by qualified professionals under the recovery plan. The Recovery Advisory Group would provide ongoing advice to the Responsible Party on the implementation of recovery actions.

There are 2 main types of recovery actions that could be carried out:

• Active: Where direct human actions help recovery, for example, re-planting vegetation or improving damaged habitats to encourage the return of species
• Passive: Where an impacted area is allowed to recover on its own, for example, putting up fencing around an area and monitoring it while oil breaks down and vegetation naturally regrows

Recovery actions would be carried out only if they would do more good than harm to the environment. The types of recovery actions being carried out could change over time if monitoring indicates that different actions would result in better environmental outcomes.

While recovery actions are being carried out:

• the Responsible Party would provide regular updates to the Recovery Advisory Group and Recovery Lead so that recovery actions and their effectiveness can be monitored, tracked and reported
• the Recovery Lead would keep Indigenous and local communities informed about recovery progress, using existing information-sharing methods and protocols

Step 5: Meet recovery targets

Ongoing monitoring would track the progress of recovery actions against recovery targets. Recovery targets would be meaningful endpoints that all partners involved in recovery efforts would agree indicate that an area is, or is well on its way to being, recovered, and would require no further attention. Examples of targets could include concentrations of spill-related contaminants reaching background levels in sediments, or impacted eelgrass beds regrowing. Once these targets have been met, recovery actions and monitoring would end.

The Responsible Party, with advice and input from the Recovery Advisory Group, would draft a final report that includes a detailed description of all recovery actions carried out and their results, as well as all appropriate monitoring results and analysis. The report and data would be provided to the Recovery Lead. The Recovery Lead would make the report and data available to the public, while respecting privacy and Indigenous data sovereignty.

The Recovery Advisory Group would document lessons learned and develop recommendations to support continuous improvement of the Recovery Framework.

Working with Indigenous governments, organizations and communities

Marine pollution incidents are of concern for Indigenous governments, communities and organizations because of the spills' potential impacts on health, environment and cultural resources. The Government of Canada recognizes Indigenous peoples as important early and ongoing contributors in planning and carrying out recovery efforts.

The proposed Recovery Framework aims to strengthen relationships and collaboration between Indigenous peoples and government departments and agencies during recovery efforts. It will do this by recognizing, respecting and supporting the perspectives, local expertise and environmental stewardship practices of Indigenous peoples, and by working with communities, governments and organizations to weave Western and Indigenous science and Traditional Knowledge. There are many other potential contributions, including but not limited to, working together to develop recovery plans and assessing and monitoring recovery efforts.

The collaboration between the Government of Canada and Indigenous communities may vary from incident to incident. Indigenous peoples would define how they should be involved in recovery efforts, and guide how their local expertise, Traditional Knowledge and science can meaningfully contribute to recovery efforts.

The Government of Canada recognizes and respects Indigenous-developed procedures, strategies and agreements, and aims to work together to carry out recovery efforts. Where Indigenous-developed strategies and actions for recovery already exist, they could, for instance, be included in the recovery plan and implemented by the Responsible Party, or they may be carried out directly by Indigenous peoples, where there is interest. The overall goal of the Recovery Framework is to provide a broad framework to guide recovery efforts across Canada, while having the flexibility to enable regional response plans and agreements to be developed and implemented.

Questions

• Do you agree with how recovery and associated elements are defined in this paper?
• What is your view on the proposed recovery process?
  • Are there any key steps missing?
• Do you think a Recovery Advisory Group is an effective way to include local voices in recovery?
  • Why or why not?
• How should impacted communities be involved in recovery “on the ground”?
  • What supports would be required for effective participation?
  • Are there any challenges or obstacles?
• Is there anything else we should consider in the development of this framework?

Next steps

This discussion paper is intended to seek feedback on key elements of a proposed federal framework for environmental recovery from ship-source oil spills. We will continue our work with federal departments and agencies, provinces and territories, Indigenous governments, communities and organizations, municipal governments and coastal communities as well as the marine industry, shipowners and others.

We will continue to discuss key elements of the Recovery Framework, including governance, key functions and activities. This will support the development of a robust and representative framework aligned with existing marine emergency management policy and legislation, targeted to be finalized in 2027.

Share your comments

Please share your comments by email or mail. We welcome discussions with regional groups, communities, or one-on-one meetings upon request.

Please send your comments and questions by December 23, 2026.

A “What We Heard” report will be published after engagement concludes.

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Contact information

By mail:
Environmental Emergencies Division
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Place Vincent Massey, 9th Floor
351 St. Joseph Blvd
Gatineau, QC  K1A 0H3

By email: urgencesenvironnementales-environmentalemergencies@ec.gc.ca