Evidence of meeting #146 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cfia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
I couldn't agree with you more.
Ms. Lamondin, I would like to ask you some questions along the following line. Is there information that you or your department wishes was on the bill of lading or on the label when we have a seafood product in any shape or form, from a raw product all the way to a processed product, to help you do your job?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Yes, one of the things we're really pushing for, and the new regulations have allowed us to do, is lot codes, because lot codes at least help us start to trace that back and be able to find the root cause of everything. Again, it's driven by food safety, but it works for food fraud too. Our new regulations have extended some of the requirements to all foods.
To be honest, fish, ironically, has probably been one of the best-regulated products there is on the market, and our regulations brought other elements back. Fish has actually been, on the traceability side, one of our shining stars when you do have to do a recall. We do recalls on fish products and we are able to find it and trace it back.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
I was going to ask you about that. Do you believe the legislation and the new regulatory framework that you have actually have the right penalties or corrective actions in place? Are they sufficient to change behaviour that needs to be changed, or to be a deterrent going forward?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
We've have had them in place for only about four months now, but yes, I do think that the ability.... It's the first time that we have put the obligation completely on the importer or the processor to be responsible for meeting the regulations, and we have said that their licence is contingent on their meeting those. That ability now to say that if you are demonstrating harm or an intent to break the regulations, you can lose your licence, is huge. The new fines and the ability to impose monetary penalties also give us more tools.
Between that and the ability to trace back to where we think the root is, we think we're going to have far more in the arsenal than we've ever had before. Is it enough? We will certainly find out.
One thing on the traceability side, if you'll permit me to add, is that our regulations have brought traceability requirements up to the international standard for food, which is the keeping of records, one step forward, one step back. There is absolutely no doubt that industry is starting to make strides in the areas of blockchain and digitization. That is going to take all industries miles further ahead than where we are now, including the produce industry and the fish industry, to where, at the touch of a button, you can do a trace back to the original source. We haven't yet seen an industry where that is actually in place to the extent that we're hoping for.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
When answering previous questions, you mentioned that you do a number of tests primarily for food safety. I'm guessing that would include things like ciguatera, methylmercury and all kinds of other things like that. Am I correct? You talked about dioxins. You talked about all of these things.
Do you capture the DNA or any of the genetic information while you're doing those tests on those samples?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
No. I believe—and I hope I'm correct here—that the DNA testing that we're doing for species verification is a more directed approach than when we're doing our regular review for pathogens and other elements that shouldn't be there. They're unique types of tests done in our scientific area.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Has there been any evidence of or are you aware of any situation where, when someone attempted to ship fish in or bring it across the border in any form, whether unprocessed or processed, they were actually questioned as to whether or not it was what it said on the bill of lading?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
I'm not aware of any, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened and that our inspectorate wouldn't have any cases of that.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
I don't have any more questions. Some of my colleagues do.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
In your opening statement you said that you want to make it clear that in all cases of non-compliance, you take appropriate action. What appropriate action is taken? Are fines issued? Are companies shut down? What happens if the mislabelling has taken place outside of the country? What appropriate action is taken?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
That's a very good question.
We can only take appropriate action against a regulated party in Canada. We can't take any extra-territorial action outside of Canada. What we have done with the new requirements—again, I keep going back to them because they're so significant and we haven't had this tool before—is that if we do find that a Canadian importer has fraudulently brought in food and called it something else, we could take action on that. That's one element. As I said, it would depend, case by case, on what the inspector would like to do.
At the same time—and this is something we've been trying to convey to importers—if we found that an importer sourced from someone who has misled them, we'll go back and find out if they fixed their sourcing material. We recognize that people can buy fish and be misled themselves.
What we tend to require is a corrective action plan to demonstrate how they then would perhaps fix the problem the next time around.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
So what appropriate action would there be against someone who knowingly brought in mislabelled food?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
As I said, it can be a range from hefty fines to prosecution. We have not removed or suspended anybody's licence yet, but it's quite possible. As I said, the new regulations came out in January. With this new focus we've had recently—as I said, we just got money for food fraud—we are learning from groups like Oceana and others the extent of the issue, so I think you will see them getting stronger over time than they might have in the past. In the past they might have been corrective actions. Now they can be stronger.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Has any coordination been started between CFIA and Fisheries and Oceans Canada on seafood labelling and on who's responsible for that jurisdiction?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
No. We have focused entirely on our labelling—on the international conventions and standards related to food labelling and food safety through Codex. To my knowledge, we haven't engaged at a formal level on how labels might be used to address potentially illegal and unrelated fishing, which is not anything that the agency works on directly.
Liberal
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Thank you for being here.
When we're looking at the EU and the U.S., how do you feel that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency stacks up to those agencies?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Again, I can only come from the perspective of the food safety side, and I can say that, from their equivalent organizations—the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration—when it comes to food labelling and traceability, we are on par with them. We have the same requirements in place. I'm actually just learning about the elements that were referred to in the EU and the U.S. where the purpose is actually driven from a conservation perspective. I am not able to speak on that because we haven't done a comparison from a conservation perspective.
From a food safety traceability and labelling perspective, we are meeting the international standards in the same way their food organizations do.
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
In terms of labelling requirements for consumer protection and food safety on the food safety side, I would say so. I haven't done a direct comparison, but we both use Codex Alimentarius.
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
As Oceana mentioned, they include other things on their labels that the CFIA hasn't looked at that are related to the—
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
No, it's not within our mandate at this time.
