Jun 4, 2024

While the Day on the Hill lobby session has been a key activity for NMMA Canada for many years now, I feel that the event hit a new high in the 2024 session in Ottawa on May 27 and 28^th.

Lead by Executive Director Marie-France MacKinnon and executed by her team and their public affairs firm, BlueSky Strategy Group, the results were impressive. The NMMA Canada Board of Directors were organized into teams with business interests and special skills matched up to politicians and senior bureaucrats to most effectively present the marine industry’s agenda of issues. The teams met with MPs and bureaucrats from all Federal parties to bring attention to the very damaging effects of the Luxury Tax and major issues like Canadian’s rights to access our waterways and concerns over proposed changes in the Vessel Operation Restriction Regulations which will allow municipalities to apply to restrict or shut down, public waterways. Discussions also addressed critical infrastructure investments to revitalize and upgrade our waterways including marinas, launch ramps and public access points and combatting aquatic invasive species.

While the Members of Parliament are important and influential, so are the senior bureaucrats who will often have far longer administrative careers and will exert important influence in future decisions. I attended an excellent presentation by NMMA’s Jeff Wasil summarizing the launch of their new global campaign, Propelling Our Future. This was developed by the NMMA in partnership with the International Council of Marine Industry Associations (ICOMIA) and the report covers the foundation-setting findings from ICOMIA’s Pathways to Propulsion Decarbonization Report.

The report covers the portfolio of technologies best positioned to facilitate decarbonization in the marine industry. The session attracted a packed room of senior people from Transport Canada, Coast Guard, and other departments. As an example, after the session, I had an interesting conversation with a Senior Policy Analyst from Fleet Foresight and Integration at the Canadian Coast Guard. His work includes managing the very large and diversified fleet of Coast Guard vessels. He noted that while the Propelling Our Future report stated that pleasure craft typically are operated for a mere 35 to 48 hours a year, his fleet is running hundreds of hours a year and often under extreme conditions.

Given the current environment of rapid development of new internal combustion engines and the rise of electric propulsion technologies, there was significant interest in the report.

It’s just one example of the value our industry gets from the NMMA Canada Day on the Hill event. Another example was the Cocktail Reception on the final day. This was held at the canal by the National Arts Centre and for the first time that I am aware of, we had boats in the water and we were taking politicians and dignitaries for rides on the canal.

We have learned from past visits, that in fact, many politicians and important government officials are not boaters and do not understand what a boat costs, nor do they grasp what the economic benefit of boating really is to Canada.

With so much legislation pending on issues like jurisdiction of waterways, mandatory PFD wear and other issues, it’s very important that NMMA Canada’s Day on the Hill had such success. I’m sure we will be back again in 2025 and remember, that will mark the 10^th year of the current Liberal (and Liberal NDP coalition) Government. The next election is scheduled to be on or before October 2025 and it certainly felt like things are heating up in Ottawa.