Fisheries Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

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

I'll take the 80 seconds, then. How about that?

Ms. Switucha, your last answer confused me a little. I asked earlier about auditing back, and you said well, no, that should happen someplace else. Now you're telling me you do it.

By the way, you've had the enormous good fortune to be first among our witnesses, so you've had a lot of questions that probably don't land appropriately at your feet.

Who else has a piece of this in Canada? Who else should we invite to these hearings to get the complete picture? We either need to identify gaps, if they exist, or see if it's simply a lack of coordination. It's one of the two. I'm not comfortable so far that we have the full landscape covered properly. Who else should be here?

[Tammy Switucha]

I think the confusion may lie in the use of the word “audit”. It means something specific to CFIA. In the context of your line of questioning, perhaps I misunderstood your intent.

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

The real substance of my question is, who should we be talking with to get the full picture here?

[Tammy Switucha]

Industry is very much a player in this conversation. I would recommend that the national associations representing the fishing industry participate in these hearings.

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

We'll do that, but this is all about ensuring that we're getting honest products properly labelled. I don't necessarily see a voluntary process through industry groups as being the assurance we need.

What other government ministries should we be talking to? Maybe I should be more precise.

[Tammy Switucha]

You have before you the two main players in this issue related to the management of the fisheries in Canada, ensuring that Canadians are protected against misrepresentation and have food safety.

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

You mentioned that other levels of government have a role. Do provincial or municipal governments have a role? If so, what are they and how are they coordinated?

[Tammy Switucha]

I can't speak to how they're coordinated, but I know they are very important players for us at the federal level. The food safety mandate and the responsibility rest in all three levels of government.

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

That's back to the food safety angle, but there are other angles here that we need to also be satisfied about.

Mr. Burns, we saw in British Columbia over the last few years a major processor closed in Prince Rupert and moved to Alaska. I'm wondering in your observation whether the loss of processing capability or capacity opens the door for a higher risk of misrepresentation, mislabelling, etc. Do you know where our catch is going that's landed at a dock somewhere in B.C.?

[Adam Burns]

The DFO's jurisdiction ends at the wharf. As I'm certain you're aware, we have dockside monitoring activities and a variety of measures to ensure compliance from the boat to the wharf.

After the wharf, our jurisdiction ends, so I wouldn't have any information at my disposal to assist in responding further to your question.

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

It would appear, then, that we've identified, even in our first session here, quite a number of gaps where we need to do a deeper dive. I would like to thank Madame Desbiens for suggesting this, and the number of meetings, because it looks like we're going to need them to get to the bottom of what's going on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

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

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

This is going to be for both witnesses, Mr. Burns and Ms. Switucha.

It seems there are gaps here. The DFO does not monitor or regulate seafood coming into Canada. The CFIA only samples, or does random audits. There doesn't seem to be a sense of establishing any traceability system to support conservation or labour conditions in other countries off our waters.

Do you see how eliminating IUU—illegal, unreported and unregulated—fisheries through traceability could benefit conservation and mitigate unacceptable labour conditions in how Canadians buy their food?

[Tammy Switucha]

Mr. Chair, I think the information the member is seeking falls outside of CFIA's mandate.

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

Whose mandate would that fall under?

[Adam Burns]

Mr. Chair, I can speak to the area of DFO's responsibilities that touch on what the member is asking, but don't respond directly, admittedly, to DFO's work through international bodies and regional fisheries management organizations to address illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing activities.

For example, in the Pacific, DFO has significant assets that are engaged in the governance within these international bodies to make sure the rules are such that illegal activities are being addressed.

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

I think most of the members are aware of DFO's and Canada's co-operation with international organizations to try to stop IUU, but will a traceability program prevent IUU-caught fish from reaching Canadian dinner tables or Canadian markets?

[Adam Burns]

The products coming into Canada are outside of DFO's area of jurisdiction, so I couldn't speak to that. Our activities, in our FMOs, reduce the amount of—

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

Whose jurisdiction is it for those seafood products coming into Canada?

[Tammy Switucha]

The CFIA has the responsibility to ensure that any food that's imported into Canada meets Canadian requirements for food safety.

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

Safety, but what about conservation, labour standards, and so on? Whose responsibility would that fall under?

[Tammy Switucha]

I can confirm that those two areas of marine conservation and stewardship do not fall within CFIA's mandate.

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

Nobody knows? I find that mind-boggling.

I'm going to move on to another question.

Ms. Switucha, sorry to target you, and it's not targeting you; it's the system. On the sampling focus you mentioned, where you found 92% compliance, or only 8% sampling, I'm just questioning why you would sample at the leading end of the system.

It seems like you would be sampling the top end of a river system, where the water is quite pure, but when you look at the Fraser River, after it's passed municipal effluent, outflows, and so on, it's not so pure. If you started at the tail end, would you not be able to trace back to where the problems were much better than sampling at the top end, where it's actually quite pure still?

[Tammy Switucha]

I don't disagree with your observation. I think, though, the answer lies in the jurisdiction that CFIA has and in our ability to do that oversight and surveillance, so our mandate is focused—

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

Excuse me. Do you not have the ability to sample near the final end of the supply chain?