Fisheries Committee on March 24th, 2022

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

It's perhaps a bit of an over-simplification of the similarity of the tests.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. You've gone a little bit over.

We'll now go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less, please.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses today.

My questions will be for Mr. Hoag and Mr. Forsyth initially.

Representatives of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have appeared as witnesses in this study.

I've asked those witnesses if they saw how eliminating IUU—or illegal, unreported and unregulated—fisheries through traceability could benefit conservation, mitigate unacceptable labour conditions and affect how Canadians buy their food. Neither the CFIA nor DFO officials answered the question directly. They said that preventing fish and seafood caught illegally or with unacceptable labour conditions such as slavery was “outside of [their] mandate”.

To Mr. Hoag and Mr. Forsyth, does CBSA or the Department of Foreign Affairs have any mandates that would cause them to be concerned or take action on fish and seafood caught illegally or with unacceptable labour conditions such as slavery?

Mr. Hoag, please go first.

[Shawn Hoag]

We're always concerned about illegal goods that are entering the country. We do that at all of our border ports of entry on a regular basis. Our officers are well trained to identify products. In addition to that, the data that is provided to us helps us identify high risk at borders. As those products cross, we can detain them and work with CFIA to make sure they don't make it to market.

With respect to the labour conditions aspect of it, the CBSA is involved in Canada's emerging forced labour program. We are working with ESDC and other government departments—again, in our role of supporting—to make sure that when goods hit the border, they are detained, seized or forfeited if they don't comply with our labour standards.

Thank you.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Forsyth.

[Doug Forsyth]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I can perhaps add a bit to my colleague's intervention.

First off, in terms of IUU fishing, the department of Global Affairs Canada does not have a mandate to manage that or to deal with that.

Then I would echo my colleague's comments with respect to labour standards and the participation of Global Affairs Canada. Along with our colleagues from ESDC, CBSA and a couple of other departments, we are working and doing our best to manage that issue and make sure labour standards are enforced with respect to trade in goods imported into Canada, including fish products.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

Maybe I'll go back to Mr. Hoag. To identify those products that may be achieved through IUU fisheries, do you have a mandate through your department to identify those potential products or who do you rely on for information as you do your inspections at the border?

[Shawn Hoag]

I'll lay out how it works at the border. We would receive the data ahead of time from legitimate importers or brokers. Our automated systems and our analysts would then review the goods, including fish, coming into Canada. If there was illegal fish coming in, it's unlikely they would have all of the permits and requirements and documents that CFIA requires legitimate traders to have.

CFIA would then signal to us that specific shipments should be held and follow-up action taken, whether that's some type of enforcement regime or some type of compliance approach. We would do it in partnership with CFIA.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

This is for both of you, Mr. Hoag and Mr. Forsyth. Is there a central forum for your organizations to work with the Government of Canada and organizations like DFO and CFIA in developing traceability systems?

Go ahead first, Mr. Hoag.

[Shawn Hoag]

I'm not aware of any centralized discussion focused uniquely on traceability that the CBSA participates in, but we do have frequent bilateral discussions with CFIA and with DFO regarding their specific regulations and how we apply them at the border.

[Doug Forsyth]

Mr. Chair, I would add that to the best of my knowledge, we similarly are not involved in any type of ongoing development with CFIA and with DFO on traceability at this time.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

Maybe I can ask one quick one—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

No. Actually, you went 30 seconds over, so there'll be no quick one today, unless you're doing it yourself.

I will now go to Mr. Hanley to close us out for today.

You have five minutes or less, please.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you. What an honour.

Ms. Sotelo, than you very much for your presentation to us. Thank you for being with us today.

My first question is for you. First, congratulations on all the progress that's been made in the EU. I think there's much to emulate and to strive for.

One of the aspects I'm interested in is the co-operation with industry. Could you comment on the amount of regulation versus voluntary co-operation with industry and on how that might have evolved over the years? What role did that play?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Muchas gracias, Mr. Hanley.

My experience was that at the beginning, there was not too much co-operation. They were very afraid that these things were going to decrease their economic benefit. Over the years, they realized that traceability and good labelling were helping them, in fact, because their products could be more reliable to consumers and the prices could be higher. We have a lot of response nowadays in terms of industry involvement in this.

I hope this answered your question.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Yes. Certainly.

Here's a smaller question. I notice that you discussed Labelfish as part of the traceability program. Now, that's focused on the Atlantic region. I assume that because this is an EU program, what applies in one ocean.... They're similar, or there's harmonization, I guess, between different seas or oceans within the EU jurisdiction.

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Yes, of course. This is something that is more related to program funds for projects in the Atlantic region, which are more intensive in terms of fisheries. That is the reason that it was funded by them, but the regulation is the same for all the fisheries in Europe. Yes.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

If I may continue with you for a little bit, I note that you noted also that there isn't a lot of data to assess the analysis of trends over the years, but you noted that seafood fraud had declined over the years. I'm wondering whether that's a gap you identified, with maybe a lack of analytical capacity to actually assess progress, and whether that is one of the projects for the future.

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

I don't think I quite understood your question very well.

We did notice that when we started to work, there were not easy-to-implement analytical tools. There was a lot of fraud in the retailers in the market. When we developed these DNA techniques in the decade of 2000 and so on, we noticed that the industry knew that it could be done and then things started to change.

I don't know if I got your question right. I'm sorry.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I think it was more about how you measure the effects.

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Okay. We received a lot of samples at the beginning and we were seeing numbers like 50% or 60% being mislabelling. It was really rampant fraud. Nowadays we are seeing numbers of 5% or 6%, depending on the type of seafood, really. This is a very huge market of very different things. For instance, we determined that in the case of Atlantic bluefin tuna, the fraud here in Europe, particularly in Spain, could be as high as 100%, which is really high.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, everyone.

That concludes our questioning in the second hour of our committee.

I want to say thank you to our witnesses who have appeared today and gave up their time to provide such valuable information.

I want to say thank you to the interpreters, our translation team, the analysts and of course the clerk.

There are a couple of things I want to remind people of. Tuesday's committee meeting will have a 15-minute in camera session at the end for drafting instructions on the traceability of fish and seafood products study.

On another note, I just want to remind members to try to do your best to be here on time. I'll grant that this wasn't the reason why we were late or lost 10 minutes today, but we did make up for it. If you're not here, we still have to start the meeting. There are time limitations on us, so I would ask members to be diligent in showing up on time regardless of what side of the table you're sitting. I want to start on time and make sure everybody gets their rounds of questioning in.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Wait one second while I finish.

I want to say as well that today we had the minister in for an hour. An hour doesn't give a lot of time. Even though there was only one five-minute opening statement, it doesn't allow for a lot of questioning sometimes, especially when we start a little bit late.

I will say that if anybody didn't get a chance to ask their questions of the minister maybe they could submit them in writing. I'm sure the minister would be only too glad to respond. We could include that in our report or study, whichever we present to the House at the end of the day.

Mr. Zimmer, go ahead on your point of order.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I'm speaking up for my colleague today. There was quite a long time to get going and my colleague was just getting up to ask the next question and the time was over.