Fisheries Committee on March 24th, 2022

[Shawn Hoag]

I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the specific nature of a working group. What I would say is that the CBSA meets actively with most of our government partners. We provide them advice on a regular basis. Depending on the form or method that's developed, we would participate and provide advice and border expertise as required within whatever that forum is.

[Doug Forsyth]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Perhaps I could add a little bit to my colleague's answer and echo his comments.

Global Affairs Canada participates with and works cooperatively with other government departments on a range of issues, including the development of regulations and standards. We would be happy to continue to do that in any form necessary and under the mandate that we have to provide advice on whether the said standards and regulations are consistent with our international trade obligations.

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

Do you think there may be a lack of consistency or coordination in the application of certain rules? Do you think that everyone across the board should go through this exercise to establish a definitive plan to improve things?

[Shawn Hoag]

I can jump in and answer that.

The CBSA is always open to consultation. We consult regularly with industry, importers and brokers across a range of goods that are coming in. Depending, again, on the lead departments and how they would wish to approach it, we would support that as best we can.

[Doug Forsyth]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, to echo my previous comments, I think Global Affairs Canada has a role to play as an important part of the development of regulations for the Government of Canada. We are absolutely pleased to do that, as my colleague said, in conjunction with the lead departments, however they decide to proceed with that.

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

Would a European contribution to this working group improve or enhance our way of doing things?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Is this question for me? I didn't understand.

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

Mr. Chair, do I have time to repeat my question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

There are only about 12 seconds left, so I don't think you're going to get much of a question in, let alone an answer.

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

I would like to know if a European contribution to this working group could improve things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I believe Ms. Sotelo said yes, they would be willing to participate in the working group.

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll go on now to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses who are here today.

For my first question I was hoping to hear from Mr. Forsyth.

We know that we get a significant amount of seafood into Canada from the United States. I'm wondering if you can expand a little bit on any initiatives in place to help make sure programs are safely tracked across our borders. Do you think a collaborative approach would be helpful in these processes?

[Doug Forsyth]

I think that question is probably not best directed at me. Up front, yes we do trade a lot of fish products between Canada and the United States, as we do a lot of other products, but fish, absolutely. Global Affairs Canada is not involved with any programs or administration of things that cross the border, at least in terms of that particular product.

I might turn to one of my colleagues if they have any other information to add.

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

Thank you, Mr. Forsyth.

Yes, Mr. Hoag, is this something you might be able to better answer? If not, I'll move on to my next question.

[Shawn Hoag]

From a border perspective, of course the rules that the U.S. applies and the rules and regulations that we apply in Canada can be quite different. We certainly speak with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to make sure that the ports of entry are functioning smoothly, but with respect to specific regulations and requirements, that again would be the responsibility of the Food Inspection Agency or Fisheries and Oceans. We would just make sure that it move smoothly through the border based on what they've defined as the requirements.

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

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sotelo, you had mentioned in your opening statement the need for greater co-operation between partners. Could you share some of your thoughts on how helpful it would be to make sure that illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing is addressed to support this co-operation between partners?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

My statement referred more to fighting fraud by fighting misrepresentation of seafood. In Europe, and even in countries like in Spain that are not very big, we have different administrations that do not necessarily talk to each other. Sometimes you find that there is co-operation.

In terms of analytical methods, they are not using the same methods in Europe. The European Commission performed a study in 2015 about seafood labelling across Europe, and there were many different techniques and control labs were not speaking the same language, so I refer to that.

That could be applied to other things like traceability and other aspects of labelling and traceability.

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

Thank you.

Perhaps I'll go back to Mr. Hoag. One of the key recommendations that we've heard from a number of stakeholders is about developing a task force or a committee between departments and agencies to help ensure that gaps are being addressed.

I'm wondering if the Canada Border Services Agency would play a key part in that, and what technical perspective do you think that this agency would bring to the table?

[Shawn Hoag]

As the Border Services Agency, we would bring our expertise in how goods are imported or exported out of Canada and the penalties and enforcement regimes that are available under the Customs Act.

We would do that in support of the lead departments, as they would be better positioned to lead any discussion about what the exact requirements are and the regime of traceability they would like to see put in place.

Then we would make sure that that actually happens technically at the border.

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

Great, thank you.

Do you agree with the importance of having this in place?

[Shawn Hoag]

As a border services agency, we're always interested in discussions with our other government departments that are focused on strengthening the safety and security of Canada and the health of Canadians. We do that on a regular basis.

If those departments chose to use a task force type of model or some other type of model, we would continue to support them in that insofar as it reaches back to our mandate.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Sotelo, one suggestion we heard was that potentially mislabelled fish products could be given PCR tests, similar to what we see with COVID screening, to quickly confirm that a product is what it was labelled as being.

Can you speak a little bit to how the EU has been doing this enforcement? Are there best practices that you think we could incorporate?

[Dr. Carmen G. Sotelo]

I think the gold standard here is still DNA sequencing, which is not the same as the PCR test you mentioned. There are many methods that have been developed to implement this type of methodology in the seafood sector. It's more complicated because, as you know, we have many different species in the global seafood market. It's not as easy as in the case of COVID, for instance.

Yes, there are methods implemented.