June 2020
New Canadian Safe Boating Council Board elected
At the CSBC’s Annual General Meeting on May 20, 2020, the following slate of Directors and officers was elected:

Chair: Joe Gatfield
Vice Chair: Ted Fortuna
Secretary: Ron Kroeker
Treasurer: Denis Vallée
Past Chair and Member at large: John Gullick
Executive members at large: Lawrence Jacobs, Jean Murray
 
Returning Directors:
Mal Blann, Barbara Byers, Rick Cassels, Ian Gilson, Brenda Reeve, Clara Reinhardt, Alain Roy, Steve Wagner plus above Executive

New Directors:
Daniel Breton, Ian Campbell (appointment effective in December 2020), Bob Chabot, Peter Heard, Michelle McShane

Ex-officio observer: Stu Gilfillen, Chair, U.S. National Safe Boating Council

Peter Garapick and Jay Morrison are stepping down from the Board.

Director Emeritus: Michael Vollmer (CSBC Chair appointment)

CSBC Chair Joe Gatfield thanked the retiring Board members for their contribution and the continuing Board members for their ongoing commitment. He warmly welcomed the new Board members. The CSBC is a volunteer-based organization, and our growth as an influential and successful boating safety organization is thanks to the hard work and dedication of our Board, Committee Chairs and project leaders.
Introducing the New CSBC Directors
Daniel Breton has held a number of senior leadership roles with the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG), and is currently Director General, Response, overseeing the policy and operational program delivery for Canada’s maritime search and rescue (SAR) system, environmental response program and implementation of the new Wrecked, Abandoned and Hazardous Vessels Act.

Following his graduation from the Canadian Coast Guard College, Ian Campbell served as an officer in the CCG Fleet and subsequently assumed responsibility for Transport Canada’s Office of Boating Safety. Recently retired, he is an enthusiastic boater – sailing, paddling and power boating have been a big part of his life.

Bob Chabot has been a member of the RCMP for 28 years. A Staff Sergeant, he is the Inland Water Transport Coordinator and the Marine SAR Coordinator for D Division (Manitoba). He has extensive marine training qualifications and is an avid hunter and fisherman, with a personal “fleet” of 5 vessels.

Peter Heard recently retired after a 31 year career with the York Regional Police, serving in uniform patrol, criminal investigations and as Officer in Charge of the Marine Unit. He has been an active member of the Newmarket Power and Sail Squadron for the past 20 years, serving in a number of roles including Squadron Commander.

Michelle McShane is Executive Director of Paddle Canada, and brings 20 years of experience as general manager of an outdoor and paddling store, a paddling instructor and a wilderness guide. She is a lifelong paddler and outdoor enthusiast.
CSBC Symposium Goes On-line
The Canadian Safe Boating Council has had to cancel the 2020 Symposium, planned for September 28 – October 1 at the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, because of the COVID-19 situation. This is disappointing – we had a great program planned, the hotel and the location are beautiful, and it is always wonderful for the boating safety community to get together and learn from each other. We hope to return to St. Andrews in the future.

The good news is, we are planning an exciting virtual Symposium to be held on October 1, 2020, and you can participate for free!

The focus of this webinar will be Shared Waterways: the Way Ahead. Shared Waterways was the theme for the 2019 Symposium in Port Credit, and it attracted a lot of interest. We engaged new groups such as port authorities, who shared their own perspectives and practices; participant discussions yielded several ideas; and all agreed that shared waterways is a significant issue. However, no clear way forward on the issue emerged. At the October 1 webinar we are planning to take the next steps:

-       to bring additional perspectives from international speakers and the paddling community
-       to examine the tools we collectively have to address shared waterways issues
-       and to determine the next steps we can take, individually or collectively.
We are busy planning the virtual Symposium in more detail. In the meantime, save the date, and plan to join us!

Our thanks, as always, go to Stearns Coleman, Presenting Sponsor, for their support of this event and many other CSBC activities.
CSBC Safety Campaigns 2020 
Safe Boating Awareness Week (SBAW) looked quite different this season. With Winnipeg, Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, Nelson and Toronto all poised to attract the media and spread the CSBC safe boating messages, the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined the physical launches, replacing them with national outreach messages delivered in partnership with Canada Newswire and Cision media services. The messages were delivered to news outlets across Canada, direct to media influencers and through social media. In addition to the traditional boating safety messages, the communication also highlighted the changes in boating that should be undertaken to maintain safe social distancing as well. One notable feature of this year’s launch was a video production telling the story and offering some important ‘lessons learned’ as a result of a dramatic rescue of 6 paddlers in the Vancouver area in 2018. This was a joint venture video project between Jamie Gibson with the Vancouver Police Marine Unit and Dave Hill with PlaySafe Productions. It can be viewed at https://youtu.be/u6E3rjbVcM4.

In spite of the delivery and venue changes this year, the CSBC provided millions of Canadian boaters with great safety information to use during the actual Safe Boating Week and well into the rest of the boating season.

Transport Canada also referenced the CSBC web site in their SBAW press release.

Completion of outstanding New SAR Initiatives (NIF) projects
The CSBC has consistently been successful in being ‘green lighted’ to deliver Safe Boating and SAR awareness messaging through Public Safety Canada’s NIF program. One project has recently been completed (March 31), however, due to COVID-19 two were delayed. The project completed was SmartBoater Youth, which was done in conjunction with Scouts Canada. We worked with them to create the background content and reference materials for new trail cards on boating safety and cold-water awareness. A total of 11 trail cards were created and implemented across Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Venturers.

The other two projects, Operation Life Preserver (OLP) and Northern Youth Ambassador (NYA), were impacted due to COVID-19. We were in the process of finishing up a few tasks when the country essentially shut down and we were not able to complete them. This included distribution of the remaining educational presentation kit requests and finalizing our lifejacket distribution in the Yukon. The good news is that a one-year extension has been approved to complete these tasks in 2020-2021. OLP focused on the delivery of a water/boating safety education program into the schools in northern/remote communities and a lifejacket ownership program, which included the purchasing and delivery of lifejackets into these communities. NYA was an extension of OLP, taking the education program to the Junior Canadian Rangers and training them so they could take the program back into their communities. We also expanded the lifejacket ownership program into additional northern communities.
New NIF projects approved this year:

Research That Floats/Boating Safety Speaks

This project combines two complementary projects into a single 3-year research and advertising campaign.

Research that Floats will be one of the first Canadian lifejacket wear studies in a long time. Starting with developing a baseline wear rate in a number of inland lakes (historically the largest category for boater drownings), it features a unique Canadian twist, that will improve efficiency: the study will be conducted from the air and complemented with an intercept study. A significant lifejacket wear advertising campaign will be launched in the studied area and the results observed and reported on. A comprehensive report will follow, providing boating safety outreach partners with results and strategies that they can execute in their own areas.

The second, complementary part of the project is Boating Safety Speaks (BoSS), a national initiative to deliver boating safety messages like they have never been delivered before. Over the 3 years, 6 individual campaigns using Augmented Reality (AR), an immersive interactive learning experience for boaters, will be created on subjects to provide boaters with the information they need to reduce the frequency, duration, and severity of SAR missions. BoSS engages boaters across different traditional media, economically leveraged through CSBC marine and media relationships, and introducing the target boating audience to a new level of information through AR. The key information is delivered in short videos and engaging, interactive presentations so that users only need short attention spans to digest and process the important material. Plus, the themes of preparation, prevention and performance to be integrated into the boating experience are repeatedly focused on to provide greater awareness, retention, and recall, with a more compelling call to action than more traditional simple wear your lifejacket messages can.
SARSmart
SARSmart is a 3-year outreach/educational initiative that will leverage cold-water awareness and survival in a SAR prevention program delivered to Indigenous communities across Canada. It will include content focussing on the unique challenges of being properly prepared and self-sufficient in remote northern locations, deliver knowledge and nurture abilities related to prevention and self-rescue practices to reduce the need for SAR calls in the North through training and promotion.

The nucleus of SARSmart is an experiential survival/self-rescue video course, based on a Bootcamp incorporating elements of cold-water survival, ice safety, self-rescue, hypothermia awareness and care of a hypothermic subject. Volunteer representatives from northern regions will participate and learn what it takes to be SARSmart, and then share their experiences, new knowledge and relevance to their lives.

Once completed, community outreach will occur on many platforms. The first delivery will be a series of personal posters, each one of a Bootcamp volunteer from the region in which the poster will be situated. Supported by augmented reality (AR), the posters will come to life, with the volunteers telling their stories and sharing lessons learned. The posters will also point to an educational website with teaching elements from the Bootcamp & additional personal stories of the participants.
Transport Canada New Boating Guidelines re COVID-19
This summer, stay safe on the water has an added dimension: adapting to COVID-19. Transport Canada has extensive material on its website https://www.tc.gc.ca/en/initiatives/covid-19-measures-updates-guidance-tc/guidelines-pleasure-craft-covid-19-pandemic.html

As restrictions on boating activities ease in different parts of the country, Transport Canada has issued new guidelines to respect the realities of COVID-19. You may be interested in the following specifics:

COVID-19: Physical distancing for Canadian boaters (accessible PDF) : https://www.tc.gc.ca/documents/2019-2020-AA-36-COVID-19_SOCIAL_DISTANCING_BOATERS_17x11_EN_V05_ACC.PDF

Pleasure craft north of the 60 th parallel: As of June 1, 2020, pleasure craft will be prohibited from operating within Canada’s Arctic coastal waters (north of the 60th parallel), as well as in the coastal areas of northern Quebec and Labrador. These restrictions will not apply to pleasure craft used by local communities, or used for purposes such as essential transportation or subsistence fishing, harvesting and hunting. These measures will remain in place until at least October 31, 2020. For more information go to https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2020/05/the-government-of-canada-announces-new-measures-for-pleasure-craft-in-northern-communities.html

  • COVID-19: Physical distancing and safe boating for Canadians
  • COVID-19: Guidance for Canadians using marinas and boat launches
  • COVID-19: Safe boating for Canadians to reduce the burden on emergency responders
  • Planning on boating across the border? Don’t.
Imagine Marine! Campaign
As we all know, the marine industry is very diverse, but all aspects of the industry are linked. The Canadian Safe Boating Council has now become a member of an initiative launched by the Canadian Marine Industry Foundation (CMIF) to help Canadians interested in starting a career at sea or on shore find their way in this maze. In comes the CMIF’s Imagine Marine! campaign.

Virtually every industry lists workforce renewal as one of their top three challenges to business. For marine, it’s within the top two and is a growing threat. Unlike other sectors, marine requires more than a generational turnover of workers, rather it depends on an ongoing talent pool willing to undergo specific training at all levels, including entry level.

The CMIF aims to mitigate the threat that a labour shortage poses to the commercial marine sector and, by extension to the Canadian economy, as well as to the public sector where similar needs for both shipboard and shore side personnel exist. The Foundation works with stakeholders and supporters to serve as a national forum bringing together key marine industry stakeholders across Canada. The goal is to synergize efforts to attract talent to the marine industry. The CMIF will also develop and administer services and programs that promote greater public awareness of careers in the private and public sectors of the industry. It will serve as the Canadian umbrella, showing marine industry resources including the CSBC, and mainly directing educational, mentoring and employment inquiries to the appropriate channels.

The CMIF’s role is to help tell and bring colour to the fascinating story of marine and therefore raise awareness of the industry so it can better compete for the skilled labour, trades, and accredited professionals that will steer the industry forward. The Foundation harnesses the energy and resources of members to inform and educate the wider public on the virtues of marine and its extensive benefits. Launching in the early second half of 2020, the Imagine Marine! campaign will speak of lifestyle, work-life balance and the pursuit of dreams, inviting candidates to consider an industry with a tradition and future like no other. It will ask them to Imagine Marine!

The Foundation’s core campaign efforts will include a “public-facing” component aimed at target audiences with a message that resonates in form and function. Leveraging the power of the internet and social media, Imagine Marine! will identify and engage potential workforce audiences ranging from entry level through to experienced professionals and also second career candidates. It will illustrate marine’s value through real life words and images from existing industry workers, ashore and afloat.

The goal is to generate interest, create dialogue, and direct job and career seekers to the Foundation’s Imagine Marine website. The CMIF is asking for your help to get the message across to the workforce and to the next generation, and to steer them towards the upcoming Imagine Marine web site and social media channels so they too can Imagine Marine! You can contact the CMIF at [email protected] , find out more at www.cmif-fimc.ca and follow them on LinkedIn for the latest news on the launch of Imagine Marine!
Canadian Safe Boating Awards
Due to the evolving COVID-19 situation, we are not yet sure about the timing and format of the next Canadian Safe Boating Awards celebration. What we do know is that there are boating safety heroes out there all the time, and that they deserve recognition. So as you are out on the water this summer, keep your eyes open for someone who is making a significant contribution to boating safety – an individual, a group or an organization, and nominate them for a Canadian Safe Boating Award https://csbc.ca/en/events/casbas/nomination-form . Watch this newsletter and the CSBC website for updates.
Boats We Love
Conceived during the initial dark days of the COVID-19 restrictions, this is an ongoing series in which CSBC Directors and project leaders share what they love about boats and boating. We are all a community, committed to staying safe on the water together.
Joe Gatfield, CSBC Chair

Why, might you say, would I have love for this boat? It was my first…. I paid $20 for it and it needed much repair and TLC. This boat allowed me to gain the respect from my parents that they had confidence in what I was doing and it was my initial education in ‘all that matters’ when it comes to boating. I was 14 and the boat was only 8 feet long. Safety equipment was mandated and my eagerness to get out on the water was only hampered by the amount of time it took to get everything right. The thrill of the first ride left me ‘hooked on boating’ and the lessons learned were branded for life.
John Gullick , Past Chair

This is my 1959 Peterborough Jupiter. I just finished rebuilding a 1962 Mercury 45 hp so that it now has a long shaft that is required because of the depth of this boat. My wife Vicki and I bought this boat two years ago and I spent a lot of time restoring the exterior and redesigning the interior with a split front seat. The boat was built in Peterborough and the Mercury outboard was built near Downsview, just North of Yorkdale in Toronto.

More...

And for those of you who can’t get enough of antique boats, check out the articles and photos by Ron Kroeker, CSBC Secretary, and Michael Vollmer, Director Emeritus, in the October 2019 and August 2015 newsletters. https://csbc.ca/en/newsletters
In brief  
The CSBC runs Cold Water Workshops to train those who serve as first responders or who work around cold water on how to rescue and treat potentially hypothermic victims. Our 2020 workshops are currently on hold while we adapt to the COVID-19 situation. Please contact Ian Gilson at [email protected] if you are interested in hosting or attending a cold water workshop in the future. In the meantime, we have plenty of cold water resources available on the CSBC website, including the Cold Water Boot Camp and Beyond Cold Water Boot Camp DVDs, available for purchase at https://csbc.ca/en/cold-water-dvd-s.

Diana Piquette took over from Frances Carmichael as Chair, Safe Quiet Lakes on May 23, 2020. Safe Quiet Lakes https://safequiet.ca/ is focussed on making the Muskoka Lakes safer and quieter to ensure the sustainable enjoyment of a treasured shared resource.

Senior management changes at the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) and Transport Canada:
  • Daniel Breton has been formally appointed as Director General, Response, CCG
  • Julie Gascon, Director General, Operations, CCG, will be assuming the role of Director General, Marine Safety and Security at Transport Canada on June 29
  • Marc Mes will be re-joining the Coast Guard to assume the role of Director General, Operations, effective July 13, 2020.

Are you looking for calm and positivity in these stressful times? Check out the Tripping the Rideau Canal TV Ontario documentary at https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/tripping-the-rideau-canal . A real-time (3 hours) journey in an antique boat down the Rideau Canal, with just the sights and the natural sounds (birds, engine, locks) that surround you.