We would like to offer some guidance to ship owners and operators on the topic of foreign hold cleaning crews that may be hired to perform hold cleaning while vessel is ballasting to West Coast Canada. It is definitely not good news, but important to know.

We have recently been asked to check into the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) regulations with regards to whether or not these hold cleaning workers are able to sign off in Canada without a Canadian visitor visa.

The answer to this question is No, they are not able to sign off without a Canadian Visa.

However it is actually a bit more complicated than this. Because these workers are NOT considered by CBSA to be vessel crew members, the regulations are written such that these workers are technically not even permitted to arrive in Canada on a ship. CBSA views people arriving by ship the same as if they were arriving at an airport. Ship crew members are visa exempt, but foreign workers that are NOT crew members are NOT exempt from the visa requirement.

Below is an excerpt from our dialogue with the CBSA which has a hyperlink to their instructions. Page 7 of Manual 17 is the applicable section if you want to familiarize yourself with the regs.

• ENF 17, section 5.13 provides further clarification that “These persons [supernumeraries] should not be named on crew lists. They are not exempt from passport and visa requirements. This list is not exhaustive. Even if non-crew members claim that they do not intend to go ashore while the vessel is in port, they are still required to comply with applicable visa and passport requirements.”  Here is the link to the electronic EN Manuals Operational instructions and guidelines — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada – Canada.ca.  I have included the Enforcement Manual 17 for Marine Processing here in the email.

As such, our recommendation is that, if owners are considering to hire cleaning crews, every effort should be made to obtain Canadian visitor visas for the workers. If you choose to still hire the cleaning crew with no valid visa, and if you are unlucky enough to have a CBSA visit to the ship, you can probably expect some form of Administrative Monetary Penalty.

Please be guided accordingly.