NR 12.012 - January 26, 2012
OTTAWA - The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, issued the following statement on the 50th Anniversary of the Canadian Coast Guard:
“Today marks 50 years of service for the Canadian Coast Guard, Canada’s civilian marine fleet created to provide key services to mariners in Canadian waters.
The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces are proud partners with the Coast Guard in two essential areas; search and rescue, and maintaining Canada’s sovereignty, on all three coasts.
Canada’s responsibility for aeronautical and maritime SAR extends over 18 million square kilometres of land and sea – an area one-and-a-half times that of Canada’s landmass. The Canadian Forces and Canadian Coast Guard have developed a close partnership through years of collaboration on the provision of search and rescue services in this challenging environment.
The men and women of the Canadian Forces and the Canadian Coast Guard work together to save lives on a daily basis, providing highly skilled and specialized assets to ensure that in even the most challenging of conditions, locations and situations, there are resources that are prepared and capable of rendering assistance. The Canadian Forces and the Coast Guard jointly staff three Joint Rescue Control Centres (JRCCs) located in Halifax, Trenton and Esquimalt, and coordinate efforts to respond to SAR incidents where both aeronautical and maritime response is required, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The JRCCs coordinate response to approximately 9,100 incidents annually, and these actions have provided assistance to more than 20,000 persons, saving, on average, more than 1,200 lives each year.
DND/CF and the CCG are also partners in three Marine Security Operation Centres, which collect and analyze vast amounts of information from the East and West coasts and Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway in order to identify security threats and strengthen marine security for Canada and her allies. The Marine Security Operation Centres monitor Canadian territorial waters, and detect and assess security threats potentially posed by approximately 1000 vessels each day, from a distance of over 2000 nautical miles.
We look forward to working even more closely with the Canadian Coast Guard in the future, as we continue to strengthen our ability to protect and provide assistance to Canadians.
Congratulations to all members of the Canadian Coast Guard, past and present, for all you do in Canada's name.”
