The H.M.C.S Gatineau was a Restigouche class destroyer that served the Royal Canadian Navy and later the Canadian Forces from the late-1950s to the late-1990s. There were seven ships of the class commissioned between 1958 and 1959.

Gatineau was laid down on 30 April 1953 at Davie Shipbuilding Ltd., Lauzon and launched on 3 June 1957. She was officially commissioned into the RCN on 17 February 1959 and carried the pennant number 236 as a destroyer escort. In the late 1960s, HMCS Gtineau was refitted to what was known as the Improved RESTIGOUCHE (IRE) class, which replaced the aft 3"/50 gun with an octuple ASROC launcher and the old mast with a new, taller lattice mast. The stern was also altered in order to accommodate a new variable depth sonar. Gatineau was paid off 24 May 1996. There were plans to sink her as an artificial reef in the St Lawrence but when that was not approved she was scrapped in Pictou NS.

Founded in 1910 as the Naval Service of Canada and given royal sanction in 1911, the Navy was placed under the Department of National Defence in 1923, and amalgamated with the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Army to form the unified Canadian Forces in 1968, where it was known as the Maritime Command until 2011.

The Government of Canada has restored the use of the historic designations of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), the Canadian Army (CA), and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). The announcement, made in Halifax Aug. 16 by the Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Peter MacKay, came exactly 100 years after King George V signed a letter granting the royal designation to what
was then known as the Canadian Naval Services – Aug. 16, 1911.