Noah tries to get some solid information on the recent announcement by the Prime Minister that as part of changes to bring Canada into line with our decade-old NATO commitments, the Canadian Coast Guard would be moved from the civilian oversight of the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans to the military oversight of the Ministry of National Defence. Oddly, the government seems to have been caught rather flat-footed by the PM’s announcement:
When Monday came I was invited to take part in a Media Briefing before [the PM] took questions. My immediate goal was to bring this topic up and get some sort of official words on what these plans were, especially after it wasn’t mentioned in [Carney’s] speech beforehand.
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What we were told was that no such move was taking place, nor plans to arm the Coast Guard and that the current plan was to focus on augmenting their capabilities through new sensors and further collaboration with the RCN.
It was a definitive statement, one that we all agreed was cut and dry. I even reached out to other journalists before adding it to the livethread to make sure we were on [the same] page.
So imagine my surprise when Steven at the G&M came out blazing with a straight no, the plan is to move them. He even came backed up with a statement from the PMO, and credit to Steven, he was quick on this:
Credit to Steven Chase at the Globe & Mail
So as you can imagine my new goal was to figure out what exactly the hell was happening to the Coast Guard, with multiple competing statements on the subject. I made it my mission to have a definitive answer.
So it was back to asking, and emailing, everyone, from the DND to the PMO, CCG to the DFO. I got in contact, I dug into sources, even went as far as to ask people in industry if they had heard anything.
What I got for the first few days was chaos. Multiple statements saying that info wasn’t available, more time was needed. I got outright denial from the DND, only to be told they would email me back with info (they never did)
The PMO also told me info would be available when they had it. Evidently as of the time of this writing they have not responded. The only one to stay in contact and provide an answer to my question:
So as far as I was concerned this was a deal closer. The Coast Guard will be moving under the leadership of the Minister of National Defence. What will this look like? We don’t know. I had hit a dead end at this point, where sadly my reach was no longer wide enough for info.
Thankfully, there were others also keen on this, and wanting to get to the bottom of this, and they got farther than me. I will highly recommend my boy Stuart’s article on this as he got farther than me.
What has become evidently clear is:
- The Coast Guard is moving
- The idea is facing stiff resistance
This isn’t a shock at all. The DFO folks I talked to felt very caught off guard by everything, and the general reaction I have talking around was that this was a bit unexpected.
If accurate, then it is clear that this is the choice of the Prime Minister. He is the one who wants this, and so is making the final push. That isn’t to say he is the only one, but this has his backing and he will push that through.
