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.
Communications Director, Oceana Canada
That figure could probably be arrived at by looking at U.S. numbers and then at the size of imports and exports between Canada and the U.S. We don't have that number right now. We can try to get that. I'm not sure if it exists, but we can certainly try.
Former employee, Oceana Canada, As an Individual
It's a difficult thing to quantify because the impact on your market prices is devalued, and there are just so many economic impacts.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Absolutely. For the Australians, this was kick-started by the prawns, right? The fishers in Australia had a big thing with prawns coming in illegally and being substituted for Australian prawns.
Former employee, Oceana Canada, As an Individual
That is certainly happening here too.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Yes, right, so consumers and the fishers are basically being ripped off.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
There are a couple of minutes left. I have a question I'd like to ask.
You were talking about traceability and knowing which fish is in it. In Newfoundland and Labrador, we get processors—I have one company, Ocean Choice International, for example, in my riding, and Mr. Rogers has Icewater Seafoods Inc.—who talk about the MSC certification and the fact that the label can tell you when it was caught, where it was caught, when it was processed and where it has gone to.
Does that type of certification and labelling help eliminate the illegitimate labelling of seafood products?
Former employee, Oceana Canada, As an Individual
MSC is a great example of chain-of-custody traceability. The problem is that it applies to less than 10% of the seafood being sold. Access to safe, honestly labelled and legally caught seafood shouldn't be a luxury; it should be a right that every Canadian has, no matter where they buy their seafood.
The approach the United States has taken right now of only applying traceability to 40% of their imports is that we see more mislabelling of what is no longer included in that segment. When you have 10% that's MSC, you tend to have issues with the species that aren't being regulated.
It's a kind of all-or-nothing situation. You need to trace all of your fish in order to really hit the hammer on this one.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
I'm just glad to know that the companies that operate locally in my riding are doing this—
Former employee, Oceana Canada, As an Individual
Yes, and they're doing the right thing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you to our three witnesses. It's been an informative half hour or so. When this was first put forward for study by Mr. Morrissey, I was thinking it was going to be a bit on the boring side, but it's not. It's great information that you're providing, and something that I think most of us didn't realize was happening, especially with the illegitimate valuing of something that's $95 a pound when there's a $20 per pound product in the package.
Liberal
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
How do you audit or verify the information you are giving here? You said that you went across the country and did spot samples. I would be curious to know whether you could tell the committee how you independently verify what you've been reporting to the committee.
Former employee, Oceana Canada, As an Individual
We work with Robert Hanner's lab. He's the leading scientist in Canada on this and is part of the sea BOL, the Barcode of Life initiative. “Barcode” means you take a snippet of the DNA, and that snippet, like a bar code, tells you exactly what species you're working with. They're developing the most comprehensive bar code of DNA sequences for seafood, and they did all our DNA analysis. They came up with the species for each of the samples, and then we cross-referenced back with the menu or label. They were responsible for the science.
Communications Director, Oceana Canada
We also had the same survey design as many of the international studies that are consistent with our results. In the document we'll be sharing with the committee, we'll have information about that as well.
Former employee, Oceana Canada, As an Individual
If the committee does study this further, I would recommend bringing Robert Hanner to present as well on this.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you for that.
We'll suspend for a moment to change our witnesses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
All right, we'll start again.
Next up for presentation is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. We are joined by Lyzette Lamondin, the executive director of the food safety and consumer protection directorate, policy and programs. Now that's a title and a half.
Whenever you're ready, you can start with your opening statement, for seven minutes or less, please.
Lyzette Lamondin Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Thank you very much.
Good day.
As mentioned, my name is Lyzette Lamondin.
I want to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak about seafood labelling.
More specifically, I appreciate being able to explain how labelling fits into the mandate of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the CFIA, and into our ongoing work in this area.
The CFIA is a risk-based scientific agency. As part of the health portfolio, the CFIA strives to maintain a strong and reliable food safety system.
Food products, whether domestic or imported, must comply with Canada's food safety and labelling laws. This includes a requirement that food be labelled in a way that is truthful and not misleading. It applies to all food, including seafood and fish.
The CFIA is well aware of the growing attention to the fish and seafood labelling issue and the associated risk of food fraud.
We also recognize that this is a global issue and not just a national issue.
Today I would like to discuss three points regarding the issue—how CFIA works to protect Canadians when it comes to fish and seafood, how our new safe food for Canadians regulations support CFIA in this area and how we continue to work to maintain public trust.
First, fish and seafood represent one of several commodities that can be false or misleading. The CFIA monitors for fish mislabelling and substitution as part of regular inspection programs and does conduct laboratory analysis when necessary to detect fish species substitution.
In addition to our own inspection activities, there are a number of third party studies, such as the reports by Oceana Canada, that have examined the issue and contribute to our knowledge base on these issues. I appreciated the presentation by Oceana today to share their perspective, and I appreciated their offer to brief me earlier this week.
Third-party studies are a useful source of information for the CFIA.
Still, it is without question the responsibility of businesses, our regulated parties, to make sure that the labels on their food products are truthful and not misleading, and that all labelling requirements are met.
The CFIA plays a key oversight role, verifying that food labels and advertising materials comply with regulations. The CFIA works to protect Canadians from intentional adulteration, substitution or product misrepresentation in a number of ways. For example, the CFIA has been routinely using DNA bar coding technology for fish species since 2013, so we can check that the fish and seafood product is what it says it is. The CFIA provides tools such as online labelling tools to promote compliance and help businesses themselves verify that their labels meet all the regulatory requirement.
Another key tool is the CFIA fish list, which links the scientific name of a fish or seafood to the common name that the consumer would look for—in other words, what the fish is known as in Canada.
There are many potential causes of food misrepresentation, as well. Without question, there are situations when there is a clear intent to commit a fraudulent act for an economic benefit. This is a criminal act, the enforcement of which involves not just the CFIA but law enforcement agencies.
Misrepresentation can also occur, however, without intent. For example, in some cases we are learning that the mislabelling may occur when our trading partners call a species by one name and we call it by another. This may be compounded by the fact that names must appear in both official languages in Canada. There may also be situations where companies substitute species out of convenience, not recognizing the seriousness of the action they're taking.
I want to make it clear that we take appropriate action in all cases of non-compliance.
Finally as noted in the Oceana Canada report, the international seafood supply chain is highly complex. Once a fish is caught, it can cross many national borders.
Thanks to the safe food for Canadians regulations, which came into force on January 15, 2019, we do have new tools at our disposal, which brings me to the next point.
The safe food for Canadians regulations now require all businesses, including importers, to be licensed, to have traceability and records in place, and to have a preventive control plan. The preventive control plan requirement enables our CFIA inspectors to verify control measures are in place—for example, how the business is ensuring that its labels are truthful and not misleading, and how it monitors and responds to complaints There is also clear accountability for importers to ensure that their product meets Canadian requirements. In essence, they need to know their suppliers and the food they are bringing into the country.
The safe food for Canadians regulations also allow for significant new fines up to $15,000 and prosecution, providing an additional incentive for businesses to comply. Morever, businesses could lose their licence or have it suspended.
These regulations include traceability requirements for all foods, and these requirements are based on the international standards set by Codex Alimentarius. The regulations require businesses to keep records one step forward and one step backward throughout the food chain so that a food can be traced through the supply chain when required.
Traceability requirements are driven by food safety. The primary purpose of the traceability is to be able to rapidly remove a product from the marketplace when that's required. However, they will also facilitate trace-back during investigation of food fraud. This brings me to my last point.
Public confidence in the products that food companies produce and market to Canadians is key to market access and consumer acceptance. Canadian consumers want safe and quality products that are properly labelled.
Budget 2019 provides $24.4 million over five years to the CFIA, starting in 2019-20, and $5.2 million per year ongoing to enhance our capacity to address food fraud.
This funding helps us to better understand and better focus our inspection activities.
These funds will allow us to better understand and target our enforcement activities to areas of food fraud.
We will continue to collaborate with industry, governments and international partners, and to engage Canadians to address this important issue.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Now we'll go to the government side and Mr. Hardie, for seven minutes or less, please.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'll look up and down the line to see if anybody else wants to ask any questions here, but I'll certainly have a few.
Have you ever done an audit of seafood that you found to be fraudulently mislabelled? Where did it enter the system and where did it come from?
Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Policy and Programs , Canadian Food Inspection Agency
We routinely do look at.... We have done some testing ourselves, and even with Dr. Hanner, whom they mentioned, in 2018, similarly looking at the DNA elements. With those we looked more at imported product and our processors. The rates of seafood misrepresentation were much lower earlier in the food chain.
In terms of where food comes from, we do maintain country-of-origin requirements for where the seafood is coming from, but I don't think we've done a direct audit of this issue versus that.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
You're saying that the fish somehow arrives on our shores. Has it been processed when it arrives, as in being ready to go on to the shelf, or is it processed here?