10. Exploring Risk Governance Deficits for Marine Oil Spill Preparedness and Response in Canada

Data for this research was obtained through interviews and a literature search. The interview participants were selected using a purposive and snowball sampling approach, with experts recruited from civil servants in federal government agencies. According to Gläser and Laudel (2009), experts are people with special knowledge of a phenomenon or topic of concern. A strong understanding of rightsholder and stakeholder engagement, risk-based management, and maritime risk analysis in the context of oil spill preparedness and response was taken as selection criteria. Candidates were identified based on a three-stage process: (1) prior contacts of the research team, (2) the Government Electronic Directory Services, and (3) snowball sampling, where candidate participants are asked to recommend further candidates. In total, members of four organizations agreed to participate in the study: Transport Canada (TC), the Department of Fisheries and Oceans-Canadian Coast Guard division (DFO-CCG) (national and Pacific), and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). Nine interviews with experts from these organizations were conducted from September to December 2021. Notwithstanding the relatively small number of interviews, the organizations covered the intended target audience with the needed expertise well, in line with the selected exploratory research design. Ethics approval for the interview research was obtained under the authors’ institutional ethics board under file REB#2021-5458.

Participants received an interview package including a consent form, glossary, project objectives, and interview questions in advance to facilitate obtaining more in-depth, well-considered, and reliable responses. The interviews lasted between 1 h and 1.5 h each and were conducted via an online meeting platform. The participants were asked to provide their insights on possibly present risk governance deficits listed in the Appendix to this chapter. A conversational strategy to interviewing was adopted, seeking a natural flow of interaction (Patton, 2002), an approach generally used when interviewing experts (Berry, 2002; Fedi et al., 2018). Each deficit in the Appendix was handled in sequence. If no issue was identified, nothing was reported, and the next deficit was considered. All interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim using O-Transcribe software, and deidentified to the agency level, according to research protocols described by Ograjenšek (2016). Thematic analysis was then conducted using NVivo software (Wong, 2009), which allows the identification, analysis, and reporting of themes within the textual data. The key themes emerging from the considered list of risk governance deficits of the Appendix were then aggregated and reported, noting also in which response regions they were identified.

The results from this interview study were further supplemented using a narrative literature review process (Grant & Booth, 2009). The search was primarily devised from government documents published by the participating agencies (i.e., TC, DFO-CCG, and ECCC) using the Government of Canada virtual directory (Government of Canada, 2021). Additionally, documents published in Novanet Catalogue, an online consortium of academic libraries in Nova Scotia, Canada, were also considered (Novanet, 2022). This platform was selected over other popular academic search engines such as Scopus or Web of Science (Li et al., 2021) as it contains additional Canadian book and report sources. Search words for both inventories included combinations of the following: “marine”, “oil spill”, “preparedness and response”, “risk governance”, “risk governance deficits”, “International Risk Governance Council (IRGC)”, “Ship-Source Oil Spill Response and Preparedness Regime”, and “Oceans Protection Plan (OPP)”. The results of this search were filtered based on information provided in the abstract. Subsequently, the documents were thematically analysed using the same classification of risk governance deficits shown in the Appendix, using the NVivo software similar to the interview transcriptions.

The questions used in the semi-structured interviews focus on understanding risk governance deficits. This of course requires a sound basis of what constitutes good governance of risks and why it is important. There is a wide consensus in the literature that stakeholder and rightsholder inclusion, equity, transparency, and accountability are key aspects of good risk governance (Graham et al., 2003; Ammann, 2006; UNDP, 2010). These four pillars promote trust-building and increase the legitimacy of risk-informed decision-making (Aven & Renn, 2018).

While there is varied literature on the principles of good governance, the risk governance deficits considered for our purposes are derived from the IRGC-RGF, shown in Fig. 10.1, and described in detail by IRGC (2017). This is a comprehensive framework for risk governance in democratic societies based on extensive academic work in the risk research community (Klinke & Renn, 2002; Renn et al., 2011). It consists of pre-assessment, appraisal, characterization and evaluation, and management phases and considers these in the context of cross-cutting aspects, covering communication, stakeholder engagement, and contextual factors. Each aspect consists of several elements, collectively covering the generation of knowledge about the risk, the value considerations necessary to determine risk acceptability in consultation with stakeholders, and the decision-making risk treatment activities for real-world impacts. The IRGC-RGF has recently been applied to shipping risks in the Canadian Arctic, focusing on the pre-assessment phase in terms of risk characteristics, including complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, from which recommended paths for stakeholder engagement strategies, suitable discourses and communication approaches, and feasible roles for risk perceptions are elaborated (Goerlandt & Pelot, 2020). Given its comprehensiveness, academic rigour, and prior application in the context of shipping risks in the Canadian Arctic, the IRGC-RGF is taken as a suitable basis for our current purposes. This is because it explicitly considers different worldviews, for instance, in Western scientific thought and the worldviews of Indigenous peoples (Beveridge, 2020), which is relevant especially in Arctic areas (where pollution preparedness and response are particularly important) given the large uncertainties about shipping risks (Fu et al., 2021) and the significance of ambiguity (Parviainen et al., 2019).

A chart represents risk governance framework. Cross cutting aspects is in the middle, surrounded by pre assessment, appraisal, characterization and evaluation, and management, connected to one another. Outside is a flow from understanding generating and evaluating knowledge to implementing actions.

The IRGC risk governance deficits, which form the basis of the semi-structured interviews, are listed in the Appendix to this chapter. These are organized into two clusters, broadly covering the knowledge dimension (understanding and assessing risk) and the value dimension (managing risk), a distinction commonly made in risk research (Hansson & Aven, 2014). “Cluster A” focuses on deficits in the pre-assessment and appraisal phases, whereas “Cluster B” addresses the characterization and evaluation and management phases. These provide a comprehensive set of guide questions to explore shortcomings in the overall governance of marine oil spill preparedness and response in Canada.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the main platform for developing international regulations, standards, and best practices for marine shipping, while signatory Member States such as Canada adopt these into national law through their national legislative processes (Chircop, 2015). Canada has ratified the following international agreements: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982), which governs the delimitation of maritime boundaries and the associated sovereign and jurisdictional rights and responsibilities of flag, coastal, and port states for safety of navigation and environmental protection; the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS, 1974), which sets out standards for safe construction, equipment, and operation of ships; and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL, 1973/78), which sets forth regulations for minimizing pollution risks from ships, including oil spills.

Most other legislation governing oil spills and marine shipping in Canada relies very heavily on international and/or national cooperation. For example, the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation (OPRC, 1990) aims to build response capacity by promoting resource sharing and contingency planning between member states to enhance cooperation during an incident and develop more integrated response plans. Canada has also signed a cooperation agreement with the United States to bolster response capacity in the Great Lakes (Government of Canada, 2017; TC, 2019). This agreement includes annexes which provide further details about how collaboration is established and performed in transboundary oil spill cases, for instance, in the Atlantic (CANUSLANT, 2016) and Great Lakes (CANUSLAK, 2022) areas. The Arctic Council is a political body mainly for Arctic states and Indigenous peoples living in the Arctic, involving also several non-Arctic states, promoting collaboration on various scientific and practical areas such as marine environmental protection, sustainable development, and ecosystems and human health monitoring. The Emergency Prevention, Preparedness, and Response Working Group addresses pollution-related issues including guidelines for Arctic marine risk assessment and collaboration on research on oil spill remediation (Arctic Council, 2020). It has also facilitated the adoption of the Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic (Arctic Council, 2013), which strengthens cooperation, coordination, and mutual assistance on oil pollution preparedness and response in the Arctic.

The Polar Code (2014/15) is a key regulatory instrument for area-based management of shipping risks, adopted by IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) in 2014 and by the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) in 2015 and entered into force in 2017. It is implemented into Canadian law through the Arctic Shipping Safety and Pollution Prevention Regulations (ASSPPR, 2017) under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 (CSA, 2001) and the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act (AWPPA, 1985). The Polar Code outlines additional safety and environmental requirements for vessels operating in Arctic areas, for instance, stricter discharge requirements for ship-sourced oil pollution near the poles. The CSA 2001 is the leading legislation governing marine shipping in Canada, enabling various regulations to promote marine environmental protection from ship-sourced pollution, such as Small Vessel Regulations (2010), Response Organizations Regulations (1995), Oil Pollution Prevention Regulations (1993), Pollutant Discharge Reporting Regulations 1995 (1995), Vessel Pollution and Dangerous Chemicals Regulations (2012), and Environmental Response Regulations (2019). At the national level, AWPPA 1985 and its supporting regulations prohibit the discharge of any kind north of the 60 degrees parallel, in addition to pollution offenses included in CSA 2001, the Fisheries Act (1985), the Migratory Birds Convention Act (MBCA, 1994), and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA, 1999), which are applicable nationally. The Marine Liability Act (2001) addresses liability and compensation for pollution damages at the private law level.

The National Oil Spill Preparedness and Response Regime and Environmental Prevention and Response National Preparedness Plan (NPP) were established in support of the CSA 2001. The regime outlines the guidelines and regulatory structure to improve coordination between industry, government, and response corporations (TC, 2019). The NPP establishes national preparedness capacities in the different response areas and ensures that mechanisms are in place to provide that capacity. These response areas are the practical implementation of the NPP as an ABM tool, concretizing the governance and management measures related to oil spill preparedness and response. Canada has set out four geographical areas of responsibility for response organizations (ROs), with one each on its west and north coasts and two on its east coast (TC, 2018). The NPP also outlines the roles and responsibilities of response agencies and provides the framework to respond to marine spills (TC, 2016). This builds, inter alia, on the standards for response organizations (TC, 1995), which lay out requirements for the design and operation of the response system, addressing issues such as tiered response capabilities, response times, and equipment. These standards also define the geographic areas of response, further distinguishing designated port areas, primary areas of response, and enhanced response areas.

Other supporting legislation includes the Environmental Emergencies Regulations (2019), which, inter alia, requires facilities to identify hazardous substances that could pose an environmental emergency (including oil and petroleum products), prepare and implement Environmental Emergency Plans, and establish reporting requirements in case of an environmental emergency. The Emergency Management Act (2007) provides a framework for coordinated and effective emergency management to protect Canadians and enhance national resilience in case of emergencies, including oil spills. The Wrecked, Abandoned, or Hazardous Vessels Act (2019) addresses the prevention, removal, and disposal of wrecked, abandoned, or hazardous vessels to protect marine environments and public safety. Finally, the Oceans Protection Plan (TC, 2021) includes large investments to projects and activities to improve marine safety and protect Canada’s marine environment and coastal ecosystems through strengthened incident prevention and response and enhanced partnerships with Indigenous and coastal communities.

The organizations responsible for marine oil spill preparedness and response in Canada can be divided into three general groups: (1) those that provide technical support and scientific advice, (2) decision-makers, and (3) responders (see Fig. 10.2). Transport Canada is the lead regulatory authority and is responsible for the development of regulations and standards concerning marine shipping and pollution. TC is also responsible for developing, enforcing, and implementing the national oil spill regime and the NPP and provides technical support, guidance, and oversight as needed for their partner organizations (e.g. CCG and response organizations) (TC, 2019).

A chart has incident command system in the middle with unified command inside. Response organization, stakeholders, rightsholders, indigenous people and organizations representing indigenous interests, governments, and federal partners point to incident command system.

As a special operating agency under DFO, the CCG is the lead response state agency responsible for maintaining preparedness and response capacity for the oil spill regime and developing a national contingency plan for spill response (TC, 2016, 2019). CCG is also the lead decision-maker responsible for coordinating and managing the response and forming the Unified Command within the Incident Command System (ICS) (see also Sect. 10.3.4). In cases where the polluter is unwilling, unknown, or unable to respond, the CCG will step in as the on-scene incident commander (TC, 2019).

Other partners play a secondary but often essential role. Through standing agreements with shipowners, certified ROs are responsible for cleaning up the spill on behalf of the polluter and contributing to the national preparedness and response strategy (TC, 2016). If the polluter is known, able, and willing to respond, certified ROs will become part of the Unified Command and take on a leadership role as a co-decision-maker. In practice, ROs therefore often play a primary role in spill events, by providing the principal assets for spill combating.

ECCC provides technical support and scientific advice to inform the response while also leading the Environmental Unit (i.e. the Science Table) within the ICS (see Sect. 10.3.4). In addition, ECCC plays an important role in modelling spill trajectories, mapping resources at risk, and tracing mystery spills back to the polluter(s) to hold them accountable for their actions. Other agencies such as DFO; provincial, territorial, and municipal governments; and coastal communities also play a similar role in that they provide advice, develop their own regional or area-based response plans, and may assist in the ICS or actively contribute to the Unified Command, depending on the situation and their willingness to participate. Overall, Canada boasts an extensive oil spill response regime with a wide range of organizations involved to develop, exercise for, and execute localized response plans. Nevertheless, considering that oil spills are relatively rare events, historic spills have indicated that there are several areas of improvement in the regime; see, for example, the action review reports of the M/V Marathassa fuel spill in English Bay, British Columbia (Butler, 2015).

Engagement opportunities vary depending on the region, where the West Coast of Canada is known for having more defined roles for both stakeholders and rightsholders. For example, there are several OPP initiatives available such as the Cumulative Effects of Marine Shipping (CEMS) initiative, Enhanced Maritime Situational Awareness system (EMSA), the Proactive Vessel Management (PVM) initiative, and the Planning for Integrated Environmental Response (PIER) programme, which aim to increase participation and enhance marine safety (TC, 2021). The West Coast also offers opportunities for representatives from First Nations to join the Unified Command as co-decision-makers in the ICS (see Sect. 10.3.4). In the Canadian Arctic, in the context of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, there is a need for, and ongoing work towards, collaborative governance with First Nations in relation to shipping, where also the topic of oil spill preparedness and response has been highlighted (Wang & Aporta, 2024; Dawson et al., 2019).

Under the ISC, rightsholders and stakeholders are invited to participate in the Environmental Unit to help identify areas of priority and resources at risk, participate in response training, and participate in other areas of the ICS (e.g. community liaison, in-field, or out-field support). For a less hands-on approach, interested parties across Canada can join various dialogue forums such as those offered through the OPP, the Canadian Marine Advisory Council (e.g. the Standing Committee on the Environment), and Transport Canada’s “Let’s Talk Transportation” virtual platform. Moreover, vessel owners that meet the requirements may also benefit from joining the Vessels of Opportunity programme to support on-water operations.

Although there is no nationally standardized process within Canada, it is evident that each region has adopted similar practices to increase collaborative decision-making regarding how oil spill risks are assessed and managed. Prior to an incident, federal response partners attend regular meetings to develop integrated area-based response plans, discuss existing and future risks, develop appropriate risk assessments, discuss legislative changes, exchange ideas, and plan training activities to enhance preparedness capacity. The frequency and breadth of topics covered during these meetings vary depending on the region. At the time of an incident, notifications are directed to a central system and shared with the relevant parties (e.g. federal, provincial, municipal government, First Nations). From there, the CCG will typically establish an ICS to coordinate spill response and facilitate information sharing to support evidence-based decision-making. Currently, the ICS is more commonly used on the West Coast, although there are plans to implement a standardized approach across the country (TC, 2020).

The Incident Commander(s), also known as a Unified Command, if more than one agency is involved, are the lead decision-makers during a response and rely on sound technical and scientific advice from supporting agencies. Additionally, there are numerous decision-support tools available to facilitate a risk-based approach to oil spill preparedness and response in Canada, including spill trajectory models, geographic information system and surveillance programmes, net environmental benefits analysis, area and regional risk-based response planning, and area and regional risk assessments. Depending on the region, the ECCC may invite affected parties (e.g., Indigenous and coastal communities) to participate in the Environmental Unit alongside federal partners. This forum aims to identify and prioritize environmentally sensitive areas, wildlife issues, archaeological and cultural issues, and socioeconomic issues resulting from a particular spill to advise the incident commander(s) on how those risks should be assessed and managed. Similar to the ICS, the Environmental Unit varies between regions and is more extensively utilized on the West Coast. These tools are not formalized in legislation and are supplementary to experiential knowledge. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Incident Commander(s) to implement professional judgement when executing decisions.

As mentioned in Sect. 10.3.1, there is a separate decision-making process for transboundary spill events between Canada and the United States, which is specified in the Joint Marine Pollution Contingency Plan (JCP) and its annexes. During an emergency, CCG is the lead Canadian agency in the Joint Response Team (JRT), which is a team with members from both countries. For significant incidents requiring multi-agency cooperation, a Science Table can be established to bring together relevant experts in the field of environmental protection. Members can include response agencies, all levels of government, Indigenous representatives, local communities, industries, environmental non-government organizations, and academic institutes. The JCP is tested periodically, with, for example, the CANUSLANT exercise in 2019, inter alia, focusing on implementing plans, policies, procedures, and cooperation agreements in a simulated pollution response scenario (CANUSLANT, 2019).

As mentioned in Sect. 10.3.1, the geographical areas (shown in Fig. 10.2) in which the ROs are responsible for implementing the oil spill pollution preparedness and response management measures can be understood as the practical geographical implementation of the NPP as an ABM tool. These areas are associated with further legislative mechanisms stipulating requirements for shipowners, operators, and responsible authorities and specifying roles and processes for decision-making, scientific support, and engagement with stakeholders such as coastal communities and non-governmental organizations and with Indigenous rightsholders.

The complex structure of the legislative basis, the responsible authorities, engagement, and decision-making processes outlined in Sect. 10.3 can be seen as a description of a governance structure to establish preparedness and response mechanisms to mitigate the risks of oil spills in Canadian waters. Referring to Chap. 2 in this volume, the main risk object of these ABM tools is oil spills, with ships as the risk agent (the object causing the harm) and the marine and coastal spaces as the risk absorbing system (the object being harmed). In terms of the risk management phases (mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery), it is evident that the focus of this analysis is on the preparedness and response phases of oil spill risk management.

Finally, while the risk problem type according to the IRGC-RGF is not explicitly assessed in the interviews with the experts, it is evident that aspects of complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity are relevant for area-based management of oil spill risks. Complexity is, for example, evident from the multiple interdependent pathways in which oil spills can lead to harm to ecosystems, human health, economic activities, and socio-culturally significant sites, recognizing that data and information about these complex interrelations are not comprehensively available for all marine areas in Canada (cf. deficit A2). Complexity is also evident in the oil spill regime itself, from the multitude of legal instruments relevant to area-based management of spill preparedness and response, and from the wide array of actors, stakeholders, and rightsholders involved in decision-making processes, and in consultation and outreach activities, leading to challenges to attain a common understanding of the response system (cf. deficit A7). Uncertainty is relevant to oil spill risk, for instance, because of the challenges with the availability, consistency, and sharing of data about oil spill risks and its different pathways to impacts (cf. deficit A2), as well as due to challenges related to comprehensively including Indigenous knowledge in decision-making processes due to issues related to transparency and confidentiality (cf. deficit B8). Finally, ambiguity is present especially because the risk perceptions of rightsholders and southern Canadian actors and stakeholders may substantially differ (cf. deficit A3) and because the risk acceptability can therefore be understood differently by Indigenous peoples and other actors and stakeholders, due to their reliance on different worldviews and knowledge systems (cf. deficit A5, B4).

Identifying potential deficits is essential when seeking to improve policies and management approaches to achieve good governance. This research used an exploratory approach to understand deficits of preparedness and response risk governance in Canada, pointing to common issues across response regions and highlighting expert views on possible avenues for improving current practices.

While the analysis is not focused on the different geographical response areas of the ROs per se and does not specifically address issues related to transboundary preparedness and response, it is important to note that the identified deficits may present differently across the country. For example, some deficits were only identified within certain regions or were limited to certain agencies. This can be attributed to differences in programme availability, capacity of the response system (assets and personnel), geographical context (e.g. shoreline sensitivities, culturally significant areas), and relationships between government agencies and rightsholders and stakeholders. It was determined that standardized approaches to designing risk management strategies are lacking and that decisions are largely left up to the incident commander(s) at the time of the response. Although developing standardized processes is believed to be generally beneficial, for instance, by streamlining decision-making processes between different actors, stakeholders, and rightsholders, it is worth exploring in greater detail the benefits and downsides of standardization. Increased standardization may, for example, lead to burdensome bureaucratization or not be sufficiently attuned to local cultural differences, possibly reducing the agility and resilience of the pollution preparedness and response system.

The results suggest that it is difficult to fully eliminate all deficits, especially due to limitations in organizational capacity, that is, time, finances, and personnel. Correspondingly, certain deficits have been identified as being currently unavoidable but unintentional. For example, the unintentional misrepresentation of risk due to insufficient quality of the available information or a lack of a common understanding of the risk (deficit A6), together with challenges to anticipate outcomes of decisions (which stem from the complex system of the pollution risks and the various associated consequence dimensions; see deficit A7), can lead to insufficiently anticipating the side effects of risk management (deficit B6). Furthermore, certain deficits have the potential to pose a greater risk when coupled together. For example, in cases where there are inefficient and inequitable risk management policies and practices (deficit B4), this can lead to insufficient organizational capacity, with unclear roles and lack of local community capacity (deficit B9). In other cases, one deficit can act as a root cause leading to the manifestation of other deficits. For example, when lack of reliable scientific information about shipping risks or spill consequences is present (deficit A2), this can be seen as a cause of challenges of misrepresenting information about risk (deficit A6), for instance, by not adequately considering some ecosystem impacts or socio-culturally relevant consequences. Thus, the nature of relationships between deficits should be considered when developing management plans to understand the overall impacts of deficits and to improve current practices.

Certain deficits have been identified for having common stressors. In such cases, it is important to alleviate root causes to prevent cascading impacts. For example, the failure to properly manage conflicts of interest, beliefs, values, and ideologies (B12) may perpetuate issues in being able to anticipate the side effects of risk management (B6), designing efficient and equitable risk management policies (B4), and evaluating risk acceptability (A5). Experts from CCG proposed that efforts could be directed to develop a forum to promote standard practices for oil spill preparedness and response across the country. This aligns with the view by TC respondents to develop and decide on a set of commonly used risk assessment models and tools, similar to those developed for the Baltic Sea area (Laine et al., 2021).

A common challenge has been identified around the appropriate use of Indigenous versus Western knowledge. This is a pertinent issue because Indigenous peoples are rightsholders, having constitutionally protected rights in matters relating to resource development on their lands or that could infringe on their rights (Boyd & Lorefice, 2019). Given the conceptualizations of marine spaces by, for instance, Inuit people in their worldview, it could be argued that this right extends into marine areas (Beveridge, 2020). Generally, they have a right to be consulted; their free, prior, and informed consent is needed; and they can resort to legal procedures when this right is violated. The exact relation between risk perceptions and risks understood in Indigenous worldviews based on traditional knowledge and the implications this has for risk governance is not yet accurately understood (Goerlandt & Pelot, 2020). Nevertheless, it may be considered appropriate to increase education and give an appropriate role to both knowledge systems in the oil spill regime and formalize an approach to spill response guided by Two-Eyed Seeing. This approach fosters the development of collective knowledge to inform the “bigger picture” and can help strengthen relationships and collaboration. Moreover, Two-Eyed Seeing is a recognized approach to promote integrative science and has been adopted in numerous environmental plans, policies, and programmes across Canada over the past decade (Bartlett et al., 2012). This supports its potential role in the risk governance of marine oil spills in Canada.

Efforts are already ongoing to mitigate many of the identified deficits. A long-standing mechanism to compensate victims of oil pollution damage (including prevention-related costs) caused by ships, recovering the costs from the polluters or other responsible parties (if known) through the Polluter Pays Principle, concerns the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund. Recent efforts by this Fund to alleviate, for example, deficit B9 (lack of organizational capacity), include increased outreach efforts to municipal, local, and Indigenous governments and launching a compensation handbook targeted at these stakeholders and rightsholders (SOPF, 2023).

In recent years, the Government of Canada has invested in numerous horizontal initiatives to promote interdepartmental collaboration (B10) such as the OPP (TC, 2021). The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (2021) has also published guidelines including a Horizontal Initiatives Framework detailing how departments are expected to work together to achieve shared outcomes. The OPP is thought to alleviate certain deficits (e.g. A2, A3, A4, A7, B10) by improving marine safety, environmental protection, and Indigenous engagement (TC, 2021). Specific initiatives include but are not limited to increasing data collection (e.g. Coastal Environmental Baseline Program), updating legislation (e.g. CSA, 2001 and Marine Liability Act), investing in modern environmental response equipment, increasing training, hiring additional staff, investing in Indigenous partnerships (e.g. PIER programme), investing in oil spill research (e.g. the Multi-Partner Research Initiative), and increasing situational awareness (e.g. EMSA). However, the OPP was designed as a 5-year plan with funding from 2017 to 2022, so that many of these initiatives were established as short-term pilot projects. In August 2022, the Government of Canada announced an additional 2 billion dollar investment over a 9-year period to renew the OPP (i.e. OPP 2.0) aimed at funding new projects. However, at the time of writing, it is unclear which of the existing initiatives will secure funding. This uncertainty may lead to future vulnerabilities in the system, an issue highlighted under deficit B7. Attention should be given to which OPP initiatives are most effective at alleviating the relevant deficits from a pollution preparedness and response perspective and efforts directed to adopting them into policy. Should existing initiatives not be renewed, then it may be worthwhile to reassess the identified deficits, particularly focusing on how the sustainability of effective activities implemented under the pilot programmes can be ensured, for instance, by expanding the PIER programme for all Indigenous coastal communities. The deficits identified through the presented exploratory analysis could also serve as input for prioritizing future initiatives.

Considering that many deficits have a lack of information sharing, communication, and engagement as root causes, it is recommended that the Government of Canada develop knowledge-sharing policies and data management systems to document and share data tailored to specific needs. In cases where such systems already exist, efforts should focus on cleaning and updating them. Standardized guidelines for record-keeping could be developed to promote consistency and to ensure that files are maintained in a format that is easily understood and accessible during emergencies.

Finally, the Government of Canada could direct efforts to establish a common operating picture to facilitate greater collaboration and domain awareness, where multiple agencies can access the same information during a spill response, possibly through online decision support tools such as the Next-Generation Smart Response Web (NG-SRW) developed for the Baltic Sea area (Fetissov et al., 2021). This would collate all relevant information to increase transparency (B8) and usability, enhance rightsholder and stakeholder engagement (A4), and enhance the capacity to understand complex systems (A7), among others. The information could be organized into a series of submodules based on need, as explained by Baber et al. (2013). For example, information specific to response measures could be separated from the information on sensitive areas, while the overall structure could allow users to toggle between nodes and information layers, exploring the various relationships depending on the level of needed detail. Using a formalized structure may also reduce human error and alleviate pressures on decision-makers as the connections are mapped out for them, outlining who should be involved in which processes and where that information is held to facilitate rapid response. Much of this information already exists in separate databases held within various agencies, so an integrated decision support platform could also help alleviate the deficit of dealing with dispersed responsibilities (B10). While the interviewed respondents did not make an explicit link to places of refuge (sites where a ship in need of assistance can work to stabilize its condition, among others for environmental protection), such an integrated platforms can help improve common situational awareness between actors, stakeholders, and rightsholders under the National Places of Refuge Contingency Plan framework (TC, 2007; John, 2010).

As the aim of this work is to explore risk governance deficits in the Canadian oil spill regime, only a subset of experts from federal agencies were consulted. Their answers depend on their experience and region of operation and should be considered as a basis for identifying plausible starting points for further advancing an understanding of risk governance deficits. Insights into deficiencies as understood by different actors within Canada, such as rightsholders and stakeholders (industry, nongovernmental organizations), would enrich the analysis and would enable a more comprehensive prioritization of deficits to mitigate.

As mentioned in Sect. 10.5.1, while spill preparedness and response can be understood as an implementation of legislative AMB tools, the presented analysis is not focused on particular geographic areas. Future work could be dedicated to systematically and comprehensively understanding deficits in specific marine areas, such as areas of responsibility of a given RO. Furthermore, the presented exploratory analysis on risk governance deficits focused exclusively on the Canadian response, so that the joint marine spill response for transboundary incidents is not addressed in interviews. Future work could assess the performance of such joint spill responses for the different areas considered in the JCP and its annexes through a risk governance deficit lens, exploring agreements and disagreements between US-based and Canadian actors, stakeholders, and rightsholders.

A final limitation is that the risk governance deficits are considered separately in the current work, whereas it is observed that several deficits are in practice related to each other. Thus, understanding their joint effects from a systems perspective, across different rightsholders and stakeholders, may bring additional insights and help prioritize actions to improve the system. Hence, future research to assess these deficits more comprehensively in relation to each other, using dedicated systems analysis methods, is recommended.

Notwithstanding its limitations, the findings point to several worthwhile directions for future scholarship. This includes a systematic focus on the relation between risk perceptions as studied using Western scientific methods and risks as understood based on Indigenous worldviews and knowledge systems, including the implications this has for risk governance. This is pertinent and not considered within the existing IRGC-RGF (IRGC, 2017). Given the challenges raised to determine risk acceptability across decision-makers and rightsholder and stakeholder groups, making a synthesis of existing approaches to risk acceptability, and adapting this to the context of oil spill preparedness and response in Canada, would be worthwhile.

There is also an opportunity to develop an integrated set of models and tools to prepare for and respond to oil spill risks in Canadian marine areas similar to the risk assessment toolbox and collaborative spatial decision support systems developed for the Baltic Sea area (Laine et al., 2021; Fetissov et al., 2021; Tabri et al., 2018). In this context, considering the identified deficit of challenges to reconcile time horizons and the fact that state-of-the-art risk assessment models for preparedness planning mainly focus on the immediate response phases and far less on intermediate and long-term impacts (Parviainen et al., 2021), more research and development to improve risk models to account for different time scales are advisable.