Economic Impact of the Canadian Marine Sector

Updated 2026-11-10

Economic Impact of the Canadian Marine Sector

The Canadian marine sector is the set of businesses, ports, shipping lines, shipyards, fisheries, tourism operators and public agencies tied to Canada's oceans, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. In 2024 Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) estimated that this marine economy produced about $51.9 billion of gross domestic product (preliminary) and supported roughly 420,000 jobs, counting direct, indirect and induced effects. Shipping and port activity form one part of that total. The rest comes from seafood, offshore oil and gas, tourism and recreation, boat building and public-sector work.

The question people usually mean is narrower: how much do ships and ports contribute? The answer depends on which definition is used, so this page separates the broad marine economy from the transportation core and shows both.

What counts as the marine economy

DFO builds its marine statistics from Statistics Canada's input-output model and custom tabulations. Each sector is measured three ways. Direct impact is the activity inside the sector itself. Indirect impact covers suppliers in other industries. Induced impact is the spending by workers whose wages come from the first two. DFO's headline totals add all three together, and the 2024 figures carry a "preliminary" flag.

Six groups make up the marine economy in DFO's tables: seafood (commercial fishing, aquaculture, fish processing), offshore oil and gas, transportation, tourism and recreation, manufacturing and construction (ship and boat building, port and harbour construction), and the public sector. Transportation splits further into marine transportation proper and support activities for marine transportation. Support activities cover work such as port operations, cargo handling and navigation services.

Readers comparing figures across publications should check which of these definitions a number uses. A statement about "marine jobs" can mean 14,826 direct marine transportation jobs or 420,206 jobs in the full marine economy with spinoffs. Both are accurate descriptions of different things.

National totals: GDP and jobs

Between 2020 and 2024 the marine economy's GDP rose from $32.5 billion to $51.9 billion, with most of the jump coming in 2021 and 2022 as tourism and seafood recovered and offshore oil and gas output climbed. Employment followed a similar path, from about 262,000 jobs in 2020 to 420,206 in 2024.

Source: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, marine sector statistics tables.

Set against the national figures in the same tables, the full marine economy equals roughly 1.7 percent of GDP and about 2.0 percent of employment in 2024 (calculated from the table values above). The transportation group, which includes support activities, comes to about 0.3 percent of GDP. Marine transportation in the narrow sense, meaning the vessels and the shipping companies, is about 0.11 percent of GDP and 0.13 percent of employment on the same basis. These are small shares of a $3 trillion economy.

Direct, indirect and induced effects in 2024

DFO's 2024 breakdown shows how much of the transportation result comes from spinoffs.

Source: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, marine sector statistics tables.

Support activities employ more people than the shipping companies themselves. In 2024 DFO counted 21,427 direct jobs in support activities against 14,826 in marine transportation. The support category also has the larger indirect footprint: 19,042 indirect jobs, compared with 5,328 for marine transportation. That pattern is consistent with a sector where a small number of crew members move large volumes of cargo while terminals, pilots, tugs, stevedores and maintenance providers do much of the labour on shore.

Ports and cargo

Transport Canada divides the country's port system into two groups: 17 ports managed independently by Canada Port Authorities, and 34 port facilities that the department owns and operates. As of December 2023 the department also counted 560 port facilities in total, 845 fishing harbours and 106 recreational harbours. The Canada Port Authority ports are spread across four regions: four in the Atlantic provinces, five in Quebec, four in Ontario and four in British Columbia.

In 2023 these port authorities handled about 351.1 million tonnes of cargo, up 3.4 percent from 339.7 million tonnes in 2022. The 2014 total was 311.1 million tonnes, so the decade ran at a modest pace, with a dip around 2020 to 2022 and a recovery in 2023. All 2023 figures are preliminary.

Cargo handled, millions of tonnes. Source: Transport Canada, Table M17. Smaller ports are omitted from this extract, so the rows do not add to the total.

Vancouver-Fraser alone accounted for about 43 percent of the 2023 total (150.4 of 351.1 million tonnes). Sept-Iles ranks second, ahead of Montreal. That ordering surprises people who assume the largest city port must also be the largest by weight. Tonnage is a measure that favours bulk cargo over containers, which is one reason port rankings by weight and by TEU differ.

The fleet

Transport Canada's annual reports count 210 Canadian-registered commercial vessels of 1,000 gross tonnage or more, with a combined gross tonnage of around 2.3 million. A separate departmental briefing counts over 42,000 active registered commercial vessels of all sizes, a figure that includes about 6,100 tugs and barges. The department also states that Canadian-registered vessels carry about 99 percent of domestic tonnage.

Passenger ferries add another layer. In 2023 there were 68 registered passenger ferries nationally.

Trade flows and main cargoes

Transport Canada describes the domestic marine sector as focused on bulk cargo, while the ports handle most imported containerized manufactured goods entering the country. In practice, the bulk side includes grain, iron ore, coal, petroleum products, potash, salt, stone and aggregates. Container traffic concentrates at Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Montreal, Halifax and Saint John.

The 2023 numbers showed how differently those two streams can behave. At the four largest container ports, containerized throughput in TEU fell 14.5 percent from 2022, while non-containerized volumes rose 8.1 percent. Transport Canada ties the container decline to high inflation, tighter monetary policy and the inventories retailers built up in 2022, and notes that large American container ports reported similar declines. On the West Coast, Vancouver and Prince Rupert were also affected by wildfires and a longshore strike in the summer, while non-container growth there came mainly from grain and coal. At Halifax, liquid bulk drove the increase, and at Montreal it came mostly from crude, fuel and diesel oil.

The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence system

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system carries ocean-going and lake vessels deep into North America. Transport Canada describes it as extending 3,700 kilometres inland from the Atlantic Ocean. The corridor runs from Thunder Bay and Duluth in the west to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the east.

Two engineered sections form the Seaway proper. The Montreal to Lake Ontario section has seven locks, five Canadian and two American. The Welland Canal, which links Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, has eight Canadian locks. That makes 15 locks in total, 13 of them Canadian, plus 39 fixed and movable bridges across the two sections. The first group of locks lifts or lowers a vessel 68.8 metres, and the Welland locks 99.4 metres. Further west, the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, connect Lake Superior with the lower lakes.

Transport Canada's description of the system's cargo is plain: grain, iron ore, petroleum products, stone and aggregates, and coal. The department's economic figures for the system cover both countries. A 2018 study cited by the department estimated around 237,000 jobs in Canada and the United States combined, over 78,000 of them direct, and $35 billion in revenues. Because these figures include the United States, they are not a Canada-only total.

On the operating side, Transport Canada reports that the system serves more than 100 ports and commercial docks. Its description of the corridor lists 15 major international ports and 50 regional ports between Thunder Bay and Duluth and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connected to more than 40 provincial or interstate highways and 30 railway lines.

Seaway timeline

Regional differences

Atlantic Canada

Four Canada Port Authorities operate on the Atlantic coast: Halifax, Saint John, Belledune and St. John's. Port Authority data for 2023 shows Saint John at 27.9 million tonnes and Halifax at 9.9 million. Halifax reported a rise in non-container volume from liquid bulk that year, alongside a drop in container traffic.

Quebec and Ontario

Five port authorities sit in Quebec and four in Ontario, and together with the Seaway they form the country's inland trade corridor. Sept-Iles, Montreal and Quebec each handled between 27 and 37 million tonnes in 2023. Hamilton-Oshawa, Thunder Bay, Windsor and Toronto handled between 2 and 12 million tonnes. Transport Canada's corridor description runs from Thunder Bay and Duluth to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Pacific coast

Transport Canada states that Vancouver handles roughly a third of Canada's goods trade outside North America and that Prince Rupert is the other main western gateway. More than 100 ports line the British Columbia coast. Vancouver-Fraser's 150.4 million tonnes in 2023 led the national table, and Prince Rupert recorded 23.5 million, a drop from 24.6 million in 2022 in a year marked by the strike and wildfire disruption. Nanaimo (3.9 million tonnes) and Port Alberni (0.5 million) are the smaller Pacific port authorities.

Arctic and the North

Territories cover close to 40 percent of Canada's area and have about 134,000 residents, according to Transport Canada. Seasonal shipping is the main way supplies reach remote communities. The department notes only two deep-water ports in the North, Churchill, Manitoba, and Iqaluit, Nunavut. Seasonal sealift and the limited number of deep-water ports define the region's role.

FAQ

How much does the marine sector contribute to the Canadian economy?

DFO estimates the marine economy generated about $51.9 billion in GDP in 2024 (preliminary), roughly 1.7 percent of national GDP. That figure includes seafood, tourism, offshore oil and gas, transportation, shipbuilding and public-sector work, plus indirect and induced effects. Transportation alone, with support activities, accounts for $9.5 billion.

How many jobs does the marine sector support?

For 2024 DFO reports 219,310 direct jobs and 420,206 jobs once indirect and induced employment is added. Within that, marine transportation has 14,826 direct jobs and 27,241 in total. Support activities for marine transportation add 21,427 direct and 51,945 total jobs. The figures are preliminary and use a broad definition of marine activity.

How much cargo do Canadian ports handle?

The 17 Canada Port Authorities handled about 351.1 million tonnes in 2023, a 3.4 percent increase over 2022. Vancouver-Fraser was the largest at 150.4 million tonnes, followed by Sept-Iles at 36.6 million and Montreal at 35.3 million. These are Transport Canada preliminary figures and cover port authority ports only, not every facility in the country.

How long is the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system?

Transport Canada gives 3,700 kilometres inland from the Atlantic Ocean. The Seaway section within it has 15 locks, 13 of which are Canadian, and 39 bridges.

What goods move on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence?

Transport Canada lists grain, iron ore, petroleum products, stone and aggregates, and coal as the main bulk cargoes. The department also says the system serves more than 100 ports and commercial docks and connects to dozens of highways and rail lines.

How many jobs does the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system support?

A 2018 study referenced by Transport Canada found about 237,000 jobs and $35 billion in revenue across Canada and the United States. Later departmental material gives larger totals for the binational system without a stated base year. Because the figures include the United States and rest on different years and methods, they cannot be read as a Canada-only number.

What role does Arctic shipping play?

Transport Canada describes Arctic and northern shipping as seasonal and essential for supplying remote communities, with only two deep-water ports in the North, Churchill and Iqaluit.