Davie Shipbuilding Delivers Second Converted Icebreaker for CCG

The Canadian Coast Guard saves lives at sea, protects the marine environment, supports Canadian sovereignty and security, and maintains shipping routes to keep our economy moving. Ensuring the Coast Guard has reliable, and modern equipment is essential to keeping our waterways safe and open for business. Through its icebreaking program, the Canadian Coast Guard supports safe marine traffic in or around ice-covered waters, ensuring goods and services are delivered to all Canadians.

Today, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, the Honourable Bernadette Jordan, and Mario Pelletier, Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard marked the delivery of the CCGS Jean Goodwill, the second of three medium interim icebreakers to join the fleet after completing refit and conversion work at Davie Shipbuilding in Lévis, Quebec. The work was completed under the National Shipbuilding Strategy’s third pillar for vessel repair, refit, and maintenance. The work on the three medium interim icebreakers helped directly create and maintain upwards of 450 good-paying middle class jobs.

The CCGS Jean Goodwill is named in honour of the late Jean Goodwill, an Officer of the Order of Canada. Goodwill was a Cree nurse from the community of Little Pine Nation in Saskatchewan who in 1954, became Saskatchewan’s first Indigenous woman to finish a nursing program. Goodwill is also a founding member of the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada and a contemporary pioneer of public health services for Indigenous peoples.

The conversion work and refit completed on the CCGS Jean Goodwill included enhancing icebreaking capabilities and endurance, upgrading the propulsion control system, navigation and communication electronics, improvements to the galley and increased crew accommodation capacity.

The National Shipbuilding Strategy is providing the Canadian Coast Guard with the ships it needs to make sure our waters are safer, cleaner and healthier for all Canadians. The CCGS Jean Goodwill, along with its sister ships, CCGS Captain Molly Kool and the future CCGS Vincent Massey will support icebreaking operations while new ships are being built and the existing fleet undergoes repairs and planned maintenance periods. The CCGS Jean Goodwill will be based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and is expected to start assisting icebreaking operations in early 2021.