Celebrate National Lifejacket Day!

May 20th is the National Lifejacket Day!

Remember to wear your lifejacket or PFD and have fun out there on the water!

In the meantime, we’ll continue to advocate to make lifejackets/PFDs mandatory for kids in recreational boating.

Let’s honour National Lifejacket Day, the Red Cross’ annual campaign to encourage and promote the use of lifejackets and PFDs among boaters with a summary of the case in favour of this regulatory change.

Boating accounts for more than one-third of immersion/drowning deaths in Canada and has been the most frequent activity among 10,000 immersion/drowning deaths during the past two decades.
Unintentional and preventable injuries are the number one threat to children’s health. Drowning consistently ranks in the top 3 of child accidental deaths.
Canada is behind the United States and other Western jurisdictions that have made life jackets/PFDs mandatory for children, and in some cases for all ages.
The Lifesaving Society Canada has reported that the number one reason for boating related fatalities in 2019, in all age groups other than 0-4 was not wearing a PFD.
Canada recently committed under the United Nations Resolution on Global Drowning Prevention to: Ensure enactment and effective enforcement of water safety laws, across all relevant sectors, in particular in the areas of health, education, transportation and disaster risk reduction, where appropriate, and consider establishing appropriate and proportionate regulations where they do not yet exist.”
This regulatory change has political support.
The change also has the support of drowning prevention organizations, the Canadian Safe Boating Council; marine insurers; the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario; the Insurance Bureau of Canada; and child safety advocates.
Thousands of Canadians have signed petitions to the Minister of Transport.
A strong majority of boaters are in favour of some lifejacket legislation (85%-89% depending on boat type).