Fisheries Committee on March 24th, 2022

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Thank you very much. In fact, that ship was from very near to here. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You're welcome.

We'll now go to questioning.

Mr. Perkins, you have six minutes or less, please.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first couple of questions will be for you, Ms. Sotelo. We've heard some testimony here from some of the Canadian associations that are concerned about the barrier, in their research, that has shown.... They believe that pricing increases resulting from labelling may be a barrier to consumption of seafood products in Canada. I know that the University of Maine conducted some research and found that in Europe, when the seafood labelling products improved their retail labelling, it in fact increased consumption and the willingness to consume.

I'm wondering if you could comment. As Europe has increased its retail and consumer knowledge of what's on the label, has there been an increase in consumption and sales?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

I really don't know what answer to give. This is a difficult question, because the labelling regulations are not equally implemented by all the types of retailers.

We conducted a study in our Seatraces project and saw that in local fishmonger markets, for instance, which are small and public seafood markets, the labelling is very poor. These types of retailers rely on the trust of the consumers buying the fish. However, in the case of supermarkets and big retailers, the level of compliance is really high. I think it took a little bit of time to be accepted. When you buy seafood, especially fresh seafood, you have to trust a lot the person who is selling you the fish. In the case of a small fishmonger, it could be easy to know the person, but in the case of supermarkets, this is not as easy anymore. You have to rely on the labels.

So people are accepting the labels. I believe this has also meant an increase in price, but not very dramatic.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sotelo, I don't know if you know much about the Canadian labelling system, so I'll start by sharing this with you. The executive director of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency stated in her opening statement here that “Canada is recognized as having one of the best food and safety systems in the world and has implemented robust food safety traceability requirements”.

I don't know if you've looked at what we do in Canada, but if you are knowledgeable, do you believe that on the seafood side we do have, or are recognized as having, one of the best food safety systems?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Certainly, I don't know the system you have there. I believe food safety should be, as in other occidental countries, of a very high standard, but my expertise is more related to seafood labelling and not so much seafood safety. I'm sorry. I don't really know the regulations around this system in Canada.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I guess that's the point at which I've sort of come through our study, that our requirements under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are more about food safety than they are about consumer knowledge and transparency on the consumer side. Essentially, the basic regulations in Canada are that the labelling requirements are the common name of the fish; the name and place of the business, and not where it was caught; and a lot number or code identifier, I guess in case traceability on food safety back through the supply chain is required if there is a problem.

But all of the things that we seem to see as required in Europe are not required here in Canada. For example, to my understanding, not only is the name of the food required in the list of ingredients. Also required in Europe is the possible name of any allergens; the quantity of certain ingredients by category; the net quantity of food, or the weight; the date and minimum durability of the “better use by” product; special storage conditions; name of business and name and address, which we do here in Canada; country of origin, or place of provenance, of the seafood; instructions for the use; nutrition; date of freezing of frozen unprocessed fish products; the commercial and scientific name; the product's production method; the catch area, including the FAO fishing area in which it was caught or farmed; whether it's farmed or not; the fishing gear used; whether the product has been defrosted previously; and the minimum date of durability.

Those are quite extensive rules required on packaging, which presumably in Europe leads to greater transparency and understanding for the consumer about what they're actually buying. Our doesn't do that. Can you comment on that a little? Was Europe, previous to this, doing basically what we're doing now, and you've evolved from that system of very limited labelling?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Yes. You're right. I think you mentioned the more extensive way of labelling seafood. We have different categories of seafood and different requirements. I think this is a little bit messy, because if you have to buy fresh seafood and it's packaged, you may require many of the items you described there. However, if you buy canned tuna, you don't need to put the scientific name on the can. So there are a bit of different aspects in the regulation implementation, because not all of them require the same.

As you mentioned, we started with only commercial names. This has been evolving over the years toward the inclusion of more information on the seafood products. I don't particularly think that this is perhaps all needed, but I think the regulations here in Europe are very much influenced by the many NGOs and consumer associations that require that all this information is needed for sustainability reasons.

I don't know if I have explained that well.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much.

I think my time is well over, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Oh, yes. Somebody will suffer at the end.

We'll now go to Mr. Hardie for six minutes—or less; that's the key word there.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Perkins.

Mr. Hoag, it would appear from your description of the CBSA's activities and scope that there is still quite a reliance on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the focus on the safety of the product. But knowing that CBSA employees.... I guess it's what you would call a “risk management strategy” for inspecting goods coming into the country, because you can't look at every container that ends up in port.

I don't want you to identify anybody, but generally speaking, when we are looking at importers, have we identified and flagged high-risk products, high-risk origins and high-risk importers in light of people who might try to bend or break the rules?

[Shawn Hoag]

As part of the CBSA's processing at the borders, we receive information from the importers into our automated systems in advance of the product's arrival. That information is then used by us to conduct a risk assessment, and all goods that are arriving in Canada are risk-assessed, and yes, we do track who the high-risk importers are across a range of goods, based on history, so we know what we need to pay attention to when goods come to cross the border.

When that documentation is received, it's also forwarded to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and we rely on their determination and recommendation as to whether the goods should be allowed in.

That doesn't remove the ability of our officers at the border to exercise their discretion with respect to specific goods, or for us to detain goods until we are fully satisfied they meet the other government department requirements.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

All right, if you have something more to add, something in writing would be very useful, Mr. Hoag, because again, our time is limited here for questions and I appreciate your input.

I'm sorry, I didn't capture the name of our Foreign Affairs witness, but, sir, when we have trade agreements with other countries, and we have our trade policy, is there a reasonable expectation that our foreign trade partners will exercise due diligence in following and tracking the things that are important to Canada, such as the IUU fishery, which is horribly damaging to species and to the environment, as well as seafood fraud, which tends to be a growing issue.

Do we have those expectations and do we, if you like, assess performance with respect to those expectations?

I think we may have lost him. I don't see him on the screen.

[Doug Forsyth]

I apologize, my connection dropped off, but I caught most of your question. I'm having some Internet connection problems.

In response, I think when we enter into free trade negotiations with a partner, we absolutely assess what's possible before we get to the negotiating table. That's part of our due diligence, to assess what kind of agreement is possible at various negotiating tables, including some of the ones you mentioned, whether it's under the environment or writ large under market access. Certainly we look at a number of different issues and then when we sit down at the table with our counterparts, it's very much the case that we'll look at areas of commonality, look at areas where we can move forward together. I'm thinking specifically of the CETA, the Canada-European Union economic agreement, where we do have common objectives and we were able to achieve them in a number of different areas, whether it was the environment, or labour, etc.

Before we would negotiate with anyone, we would ideally like to have a common set of objectives, for sure.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

If you have some concerns, do you talk to the CBSA?

[Doug Forsyth]

We actually work very closely with our CBSA colleagues as well as other government departments. As we go forward in a negotiation, there will be some differences, frankly, between Canada and whomever we're negotiating with, and those are part of the things that you would settle at the negotiating table. But we definitely work with our other government departments, including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as well as CFIA, which have also appeared here.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Ms. Sotelo, you mentioned that you've really made some progress on the issue of seafood fraud through the use of analytical tools. Can you give us a bit more detail on what those analytical tools might be?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Yes, the gold standard nowadays is Sanger DNA sequencing,. I think that was a breakthrough. When we started to implement that in the routine analysis of seafood, we found a big difference between the previous fraud and the fraud that we were then finding.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

You also mentioned that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie. You have about five seconds left. You're not going to get your question in, let alone the answer.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Hoag, from the Canada Border Services Agency, and Mr. Forsyth, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

It is very concerning to know that 90% of our fished resources are exported and meet very high standards of traceability, but at the same time, we consume lower quality foods because the standards and criteria are lower or less rigorous.

What is the fastest way to change the situation and reassure our fellow citizens who consume seafood?

[Shawn Hoag]

The criteria for changing how the seafood is analyzed or reported would fall within the regime set by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. At the Border Services Agency we would be implementing that at the border. I would defer to those other departments to respond on how specifically you might change the criteria with respect to traceability.

Thank you.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Would anyone else like to add something?

If not, I have another question.

[Doug Forsyth]

I don't have anything else to add. I think my colleague handled it very well.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

In the same vein, for several weeks now, we have been hearing from witnesses in the context of our study who seem to want a working group that would consist of representatives of fishers' professional associations, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. You could join this working group too, as could Ms. Sotelo. A concerted plan could then be developed and implemented. There would be an overarching body, for example a traceability commissioner or a general labelling auditor. Following this consultation, a process to improve traceability would be implemented. This is a little of what has emerged from our study.

I'd like to know what you think and if you'd like to participate in this working group.