Author: Clear Seas

For Arctic communities, marine shipping is often the only economical means of accessing essential goods, such as food, fuel and construction goods.

Abandoned and derelict vessels pose significant risks to marine safety and have both economic and environmental impacts on local communities.

With increased marine traffic in Canada’s coastal waters comes an increase in underwater noise from vessels – and a need to understand the impacts on marine mammals who use sound to communicate, feed, navigate and reproduce.

The term ‘polluter pays principle’ (PPP) is found in many of the guiding conventions, regulations and laws surrounding commercial marine shipping. However, the significance of the principle can be difficult to interpret.

Shore power is an effective way of reducing air emissions and improving local air quality.

Canada is fortunate to have a vast wealth of natural resources which contribute significantly to the nation’s economy. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the majority of Canada’s marine exports and imports, by volume, are natural resource-based bulk commodities.

Commercial marine shipping is inherently an international activity. As such, the industry requires regulation at the international level. International maritime regulations, also known as conventions, are developed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

Test your Canadian maritime knowledge!

Today, 90% of world trade is carried by ship. Globally, there are over 50,000 merchant ships trading internationally and the total cargo capacity of the world merchant shipping fleet is 1.75 billion deadweight tonnes (DWT). The people responsible for maintaining, running and operating the fleet are seafarers.