Fisheries Committee on May 15th, 2019

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I'm just thinking about the number they gave us—$52 billion in fish fraud that's happening globally and the amount of fish that's coming into Canada. We've heard again through the Province of B.C., through this money laundering scheme, that some of it has even ended up in commercial fishers' quota. If someone's going to launder money into quota, they're going to overfish too and they're going to commit fish fraud. I believe that there are no limits once people start breaking laws.

We could be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars coming into our country. When I look at the $5.4 million being budgeted, it's a drop in the bucket considering the economic leakage that could be happening in our country and costing our fishers.

Do you agree that $5.4 million just isn't adequate, considering the potential losses to our fishers and to our economy?

[Lyzette Lamondin]

Again, that question is a bit beyond my capacity to say.

I can say that food fraud and food misrepresentation do have a massive economic impact, not just on fisheries. We recently did a targeted blitz on honey and found that the amount of honey that was being misrepresented from imports was having a significant impact. So I couldn't agree more on that.

I think with respect to the label, it's important to talk about it. In Canada we've made a commitment here to regulatory burden and really looking seriously to see if we are using the right regulatory tools to achieve certain outcomes.

The label for an industry is a very costly piece. We are doing some labelling modernization right now to make sure that what's on a label is something that industry can comply with and it's what consumers actually need and want.

We're also trying to—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I appreciate that, but I can't imagine that the cost of having fish come in and replace high-quality fish, being misrepresented.... The cost of the labelling must be nominal compared with the loss.

[Lyzette Lamondin]

I'm talking more about the need to look at whether the label is the right tool to achieve the outcomes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Yes. Okay.

We have an ocean protection plan and $1.5 billion budgeted to protect our oceans and to create value. I imagine that a traceability program would be an excellent investment for Canada to create value for fishers and to ensure that we're protecting our oceans and the species in our oceans.

Do you think that would be a good use of the department or the vehicle to invest in this kind of area?

[Lyzette Lamondin]

I am a huge proponent and supporter of robust traceability systems. As I said, we brought our regulations up to the minimum international standard, noting that they apply to the biggest businesses and the smallest moms and pops. We were trying to be very focused on that.

Having said that, our agency is very eager to start working with industry to explore new technologies, like blockchain and digitization, and see how we can facilitate industry adoption of these. It is not just for the conservation purpose, but as I mentioned, if you can push a button and find out where that fish came from or where that mango came from, you can find out quickly the source of the recall or an illness.

We are very strong supporters of robust traceability. Whether everybody is there to the point that we all want to get to, I'm not entirely sure that all industries are ready for that yet.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

You haven't done an audit.

Here, Mr. Hardie, I thank you for your good question.

Is it something that's maybe potentially in the plans, to look at the EU, do an audit, scale up and also make recommendations to those other departments that have resources, like Fisheries and Oceans through their ocean protection plan? Is that in the plans?

[Lyzette Lamondin]

One of the things we are planning to do with the money in this first year is to really focus on understanding, first of all, the issues of food fraud, including fish. Fish is the priority for us this year. We are looking internationally and working with our international partners very much—and I can't understate this—to understand the supply chain of where the misrepresentation is happening, where it is introduced and what the drivers of it are, because the responses are different.

If it is a small processor, for example, who runs out of one fish and substitutes another and mixes it in because it doesn't seem like a big deal, the proper response is probably compliance promotion and education and saying they are actually breaking the law here with what seems like a simple thing.

If it is criminal intent, then that is something we would probably want to involve our law enforcement partners with.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Is that happening very often?

[Lyzette Lamondin]

We have, but not on fish.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

That's a lot of fish coming in without a track record on that.

[Lyzette Lamondin]

The challenge with criminality is that they're very good at it.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Yes, but we want to get to the bottom of it. That's the idea of an inquiry.

[Lyzette Lamondin]

Our biggest fine ever was for a country-of-origin issue related to green peppers. They got the biggest fine ever, and they went to criminal court and whatnot. It took years of investigation to prove it was actually fraud.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns, and thank you to Ms. Lamondin for being here this afternoon. That concludes our session today. Again, thank you one and all.

The meeting is adjourned.