Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary

The Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary or CCGA (French: Garde côtière auxiliaire canadienne or GCAC) is a Canada-wide volunteer marine association dedicated to marine search and rescue (SAR) and the promotion of boating safety, through association with the Canadian Coast Guard under the auspices of Canada's National Search and Rescue Program.

Members of the CCGA are usually recreational boaters and commercial fishermen who use their vessels to assist the Canadian Coast Guard with search and rescue (SAR) as well as boating safety education. CCGA members who assist in SAR operations have their vessel insurance covered by CCG, as well as any fuel and operating costs associated with a particular tasking.

The CCGA enables the CCG to provide maritime SAR coverage in many isolated areas of Canada's coastlines without having to maintain an active base and/or vessels in those areas. The auxiliary is dedicated to providing a permanent day and night search and rescue service to cover marine requirements in Canada and prevent the loss of life and injury.

Coastal lifesaving stations manned by volunteers pre-dates Canadian Confederation (1867), with some coastal services in what is now Atlantic Canada dating to the early 1800s. The country's first motorized lifeboat was established in 1907 by volunteers at Bamfield, British Columbia.

Formal responsibility for organizing and overseeing search and rescue in Canada was given to the Minister of National Defence in 1951. This responsibility mostly fell to the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) which, in coordination with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), delineated search and rescue regions (SRRs) to be overseen by rescue coordination centres (RCCs) that would manage SAR response activities.

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