It’s regulating the waters of the real ones.  But ineffectually.  Andrew Coyne’s conservative instincts are outraged:

…the same Conservative government is proposing to tighten the requirement that every one of Canada’s 7-million or so boaters obtain an operator’s licence and carry it with them every time they get in a boat [see here], on pain of a $250 fine — an utterly needless piece of bureaucratic busywork whose sole defence is that it is ludicrously unenforceable…

A Globe and Mail editorial ain’t best pleased neither:

… it would be excessive to set up a whole regime with the watery equivalent of road tests for drivers’ licences. Generally, lakes – not to mention oceans – allow more space than highways and streets, and the danger of collision and grave injury is far less with boats than with automobiles.

Tightening of the Department of Transport’s licensing protocols would not have prevented outrageous accidents such as the one in Shuswap Lake. Ordinary good judgment – and enforcement of the laws against drunken operation of watercraft – could have done so.

Mark
Ottawa