First published December 26, 2018.
Yes, Canada has banned keeping whales, dolphins and porpoises in captivity. Bill S-203, the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, received royal assent on 21 June 2019. It made it illegal to capture cetaceans for display, to breed them in captivity, or to import and export them for entertainment, while letting animals already in parks live out their lives.
When the bill cleared the Senate in late 2018 it still had months to go. Here is how it became law, what it actually does, where it leaves room for exceptions, and how the story ended in 2026, when Canada's last captive whales left the country.
A three-and-a-half-year journey through Parliament
The bill was introduced in the Senate on 8 December 2015 by Senator Wilfred Moore, shortly after the Trudeau government took office. Moore retired in 2017 and Senator Murray Sinclair carried the bill forward. It faced long delays: committee hearings, amendments and procedural stalling by opponents who argued it would harm aquariums and research.
The key dates, from Parliament's own record:
- 8 December 2015: introduced in the Senate.
- 23 October 2018: passed third reading in the Senate.
- 29 October 2018: first reading in the House of Commons, where Green Party leader Elizabeth May sponsored it.
- 10 June 2019: passed third reading in the Commons.
- 21 June 2019: royal assent.
That timeline matters because many reports in late 2018, including the first version of this story, described the bill as already law. It was not until the following summer.
What the law does and does not do
S-203 amended the Criminal Code and the Fisheries Act. In practice it:
- makes it an offence to keep a cetacean in captivity or to breed one, with fines for breaches;
- bans capturing whales and dolphins from the wild for captivity;
- restricts imports and exports of live cetaceans and their reproductive material;
- bans using them for performances for entertainment unless authorised by a provincial government.
There are exceptions. Animals can still be held for rescue, rehabilitation, licensed scientific research, or when a provincial authority decides it is in the animal's best interests. Crucially, the law did not order existing animals out of their tanks. At the time, two Canadian facilities held cetaceans: Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and the Vancouver Aquarium.
The argument for the breeding ban is straightforward. Captive-born whales and dolphins generally lack the skills to survive in the ocean, so breeding simply creates more animals that can never be released. Ending breeding meant the captive population would shrink naturally over time.
The shark-fin ban that travelled alongside it
A second Senate bill, S-238, introduced by Senator Michael MacDonald in 2017, targeted the shark-fin trade. Finning means slicing the fins off a shark and often throwing the still-living animal back into the sea, where it can no longer swim properly. Witnesses told senators that tens of millions of sharks, possibly around 100 million, are killed each year to meet demand for fins.
S-238 itself stalled in the Commons, but its import and export ban was added to the government's Fisheries Act overhaul, Bill C-68. That passed in June 2019, making Canada the first country to ban both the import and export of shark fins not attached to a carcass.
Two points from older coverage needed correcting. Shark fishing is not dominated by Chinese fishermen; the largest reported catches come from several countries, including Indonesia, India and Spain. And not all sharks die if they stop swimming: species such as great whites must keep moving, but nurse sharks and others can pump water over their gills while resting.
Why whales matter for the ocean
Commercial whaling drove many species to a fraction of their original numbers in the twentieth century. Recovery has been uneven. Humpbacks in many regions have bounced back strongly, while Antarctic blue whales and some right whale populations remain far below their pre-whaling levels and may stay that way for decades.
Whales are not the only animals that reshape their environment; beavers, elephants and coral do too. But great whales play a special role through what scientists call the whale pump. They feed at depth and release nutrient-rich faeces near the surface, fertilising the plankton that underpins ocean food webs. When a whale dies and sinks, its body carries a large store of carbon to the seabed and feeds deep-sea life for years.
Dolphins and whales are also highly social and intelligent, which is a large part of why critics argue that concrete tanks cannot meet their needs. The 2013 documentary Blackfish, about orcas at SeaWorld, did much to turn public opinion in North America.
Marineland and the end of whale captivity in Canada
After 2019, Marineland kept dozens of belugas and a few dolphins under the law's grandfather clause. The park closed to the public in 2024. Provincial data reported by the Associated Press show that 20 whales, 19 belugas and one orca, died at Marineland after the law passed.
In 2025 Marineland sought to export its belugas to an aquarium in China; the federal government refused the permit. With the park saying it had run out of money, its owners warned that the whales might have to be euthanised. In June 2026 Ottawa endorsed a plan to move the remaining 30 belugas and four dolphins to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld San Antonio and San Diego, and Oceanogràfic in Valencia, Spain.
The transfers took place over the summer of 2026, and the final six belugas left at the start of September, leaving no whales in captivity anywhere in Canada. The ending is bittersweet: the animals were moved to other tanks, not freed, and at least one beluga died shortly after arriving in Chicago. Welfare groups continue to push for seaside sanctuaries and for the receiving aquariums not to breed the animals.
What Canada's law means elsewhere
Canada's law is often cited as a model for other countries debating marine parks. Its lesson is that a ban on new captures and breeding works slowly but surely, while the welfare of animals already in captivity needs a separate plan, ideally before a park closes. For another example of a city rethinking animal captivity, see Buenos Aires's 2016 plan to close its zoo.
Sources: Parliament of Canada, LEGISinfo: Bill S-203; National Observer, 19 June 2019: Canada's shark fin ban; AP via WCAX, 4 June 2026: plan to move Marineland's whales; WAMC, 2 September 2026: last six belugas leave Marineland; Truth Theory (original 2018 report).
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