In the Canadian Forces, Maritime Forces Atlantic (MARLANT) is responsible for the fleet training and operational readiness of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean.

This officer commands Canadian Fleet Atlantic (CANFLTLANT), and is responsible for the operation and readiness of all warships, auxiliaries and support vessels.

[1] COMCANFLTLANT is also the Canadian Task Group Commander for any CANFLTLANT deployment of ships to exercises or operations.

During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis:[2] the operational commander in Halifax, Rear Admiral Kenneth Dyer, was not prepared to take any chances in the nuclear age, and the scope of the Canadian Navy’s actions capture the seriousness of the crisis: ships and aircraft were dispersed with wartime payloads and provisions; secondary headquarters and bases were prepared; vessels in maintenance were rushed to sea; and Bonaventure and its escorts were ordered home from a NATO exercise in the eastern Atlantic.

Of the 136 “contact events” made in or near Canada’s WESTLANT (western Atlantic) zone – without Soviet archival corroboration the number that were actual submarines remains a mystery – there is little doubt that HMCS Kootenay was firmly tracking a Foxtrot off Georges Bank in early November.Previous the commander of RCN forces in the Atlantic was the Commanding Officer, Atlantic Coast, during the war Commodore George Jones in 1940, later Rear-Admiral Leonard W. Murray, who served as Commander Canadian Northwest Atlantic 1943-45.