Unlike armed coast guards of some other nations, the CCG is a government marine organization without naval or law enforcement responsibilities.

The government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker decided to consolidate the duties of the Marine Service of the Department of Transport and on January 26, 1962, the Canadian Coast Guard was formed as a subsidiary of DOT.

Built under a complementary national shipbuilding policy which saw the CCG contracts go to Canadian shipyards, the new ships were delivered throughout this golden age of the organization.

The federal government also began to develop a series of CCG bases near major ports and shipping routes throughout southern Canada, for example Victoria, British Columbia, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and Parry Sound, Ontario.

To meet the former requirement, in 1965 the Canadian Coast Guard College (CCGC) opened on the former navy base HMCS Protector at Point Edward, Nova Scotia.

During the period of increased nationalism that followed this event, the Conservative administration of Brian Mulroney announced plans to build several enormous icebreakers, the Polar 8 class which would be used primarily for sovereignty patrols.

However, the proposed Polar 8 class was abandoned during the late 1980s as part of general government budget cuts; in their place, a program of vessel modernizations was instituted.

The reason for placing CCG under DFO was ostensibly to achieve cost savings by amalgamating the two largest civilian vessel fleets within the federal government under a single department.

In the early 2000s, the federal government began to investigate the possibility of remaking CCG as a separate agency, thereby not falling under a specific functional department and allowing more operational independence.

In one of several reorganizations of the federal ministries following the swearing-in of Prime Minister Paul Martin's cabinet on December 12, 2003, several policy/regulatory responsibilities (including boating safety and navigable waters protection) were transferred from CCG back to Transport Canada to provide a single point of contact for issues related to marine safety regulation and security, although CCG maintained an operational role for some of these tasks.

An example is that all CCG bases, aids to navigation, vessels, aircraft, and personnel are wholly the responsibility of the commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, who is also of assistant deputy ministerial rank.

This management and financial flexibility is being enhanced by an increased budget for CCG to acquire new vessels and other assets to assist in its growing role in marine security.

CCG continues to provide vessels and crew for supporting DFO's fisheries science, enforcement, conservation, and protection requirements.

This committee had recommended that CCG become a separate agency under DOT and that its role be changed to that of an armed, paramilitary organization involved in maritime security by arming its vessels with deck guns, similar to the United States Coast Guard, and that employees be given peace officer status for enforcing federal laws on the oceans and Great Lakes.

As a compromise, the CCG now partners with the RCMP and CBSA to create IBETs, which patrol Canadian waters along the Canada–United States border.

[10] Several major vessels have undergone extensive refits in recent decades, most notably CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent in place of procuring the Polar 8 class of icebreakers.

In late October 2010 the Stephen Harper government tabled a report that recommended that arming Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers should be considered.

Randy Boswell, of the Canwest News Service quoted Michael Byers, an expert on the law of the sea, who used the phrase "quiet authority of a deck-mounted gun".

There is a Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (CCGA) which is a separate non-profit organization composed of some 5,000 civilian volunteers across Canada who support search and rescue activities.

[27] The result of this program saw the automation of all lighthouses and the removal of light keepers except for a handful of stations in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick.

Once again a large outcry forced Minister of Fisheries Gail Shea to respond and on September 30, 2009, she suspended the de-staffing process pending a review of services lightkeepers provide.

The information in the Notice to Mariners is formatted to simplify the correction of paper charts and navigational publications published by the Canadian Hydrographic Service.

As a special operating agency within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the CCG uses generic identifiers imposed by the Federal Identity Program.

However, the CCG is one of several federal departments and agencies (primarily those involved with law enforcement, security, or having a regulatory function) that have been granted heraldic symbols.

[41] In addition to the Coast Guard jack,[40] distinctive flags have been approved for use by senior CCG officials, including the Honorary Chief Commissioner (the Governor General) and the Minister of Transport.