The explainer: What does coast guard’s move to new ‘team’ mean?

Coast guard ships have long been a sign that the Arctic summer is approaching, with its icebreakers among the first vessels to enter the warming waters of Hudson Bay.

Soon those ships will expand their mandate when the Canadian Coast Guard is moved to the Department of National Defence and away from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The goal is to better protect the Canadian Arctic and help Canada meet NATO’s requirement for member countries to spend at least two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence.

Here’s what you need to know about the change in the role of the Canadian Coast Guard.

What’s happening?

As part of its plan of “rebuilding, rearming and reinvesting” in the Canadian Armed Forces, the federal government is expanding the “reach, security mandate, and abilities” of the coast guard, a June 9 news release from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said.

The coast guard was officially welcomed to the “defence team” by Gen. Jennie Carignan, the chief of defence staff, and Stefanie Beck, the deputy minister of defence, in a news release June 11.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been responsible for the coast guard since 1995. While authority for it is transitioned to the Canadian Armed Forces, the coast guard will continue to carry out its “vital work,” said Kened Sadiku, a spokesperson for the Department of National Defence, Wednesday in an email.

He didn’t provide a timeline explaining how long the transition will take.

Will coast guard ships carry guns now?

No. There is no intention to arm the coast guard as part of this move, nor is there a plan to fully integrate the agency into the Canadian Armed Forces, according to testimony in the Senate Tuesday by Gen. Stephen R. Kelsey, vice chief of the defence staff.

“All we want to do is leverage their capacity and improve their positioning in the North,” Kelsey said.

Since its establishment in 1962, the Canadian Coast Guard has been a civilian fleet with no law enforcement duties, unlike, for instance, the United States Coast Guard.

Why is it happening?

The change is part of the government’s commitment to spend more to protect Canada’s North, the Department of National Defence said in its release.

It includes adding “detection equipment for intelligence gathering” to the coast guard’s vessels, said Jonathon Moor, the assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer of national defence, when he appeared before the Senate standing committee on national finance Tuesday.

As well, Canada has long been lagging in meeting NATO’s requirement of having its members spend two per cent of their GDP on defence.

“Currently, about 60 per cent of the coast guard is included in the definition of defence expenditure under NATO,” Moor said, adding that with the switch of departments it will look to increase that percentage.