Fisheries Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

[Paul Lansbergen, President, Fisheries Council of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

The Fisheries Council of Canada, as many of you already know, is a national association representing wild-capture processors across the country. Actually, all of them also harvest. We promote a healthy resource and a prosperous industry playing a vital role in the Canadian economy.

I would like to start by sharing some important facts of the sector that are often overlooked or underappreciated. Canada has a strong sustainability record. DFO reports that 94% of our commercial fish stocks are harvested at sustainable levels. On top of the robust regulatory regime, the industry's adoption of independent third party sustainable fisheries management certification is multiples higher than the global average of 14%.

On the economic side, it is the leading sector in Canada's blue economy, with 90,000 jobs and $9 billion in annual GDP. It is the lifeblood of our coastal communities.

The sector takes the issues of product authenticity seriously [Technical difficulty—Editor] traceability consultations with government departments and other stakeholders. I've provided the clerk our submissions to those consultations, and those will be distributed once they are translated.

For today, I have five key messages for my opening remarks.

First, our fisheries sector is a global leader on food safety. In collaboration with CFIA, [Technical difficulty—Editor] regulators, the seafood sector was the first food sector in Canada to develop and implement what is now called the preventative control plan, one of the first regulatory systems in the world to embrace the concepts of hazard analysis and critical control point inspection systems. Under this system, Canadian fish and seafood processors maintain strict quality control measures within their operations, which include internal trace-back systems in case there is a food safety concern. Canadians, along with our global customers, can feel confident eating our fish and seafood and knowing that it is the product of one of the most advanced food safety systems in the world.

Second, misrepresentation is a limited problem. As you heard last week from CFIA, they found 92% labelling compliance for fish. As I just mentioned, domestic processors have rigorous systems in place. Major retailers, restaurants and distributors have responsible [Technical difficulty—Editor] levels and frequencies of reporting and supplier audits.

Third, it is a long-standing fact that Canadians do not eat the recommended amounts of fish and seafood, two servings per week. We have been increasingly active in promoting seafood consumption and researching the domestic market, and we will soon launch a national marketing campaign, pending funding approval. We also have a consumer guide that is in the final stages of production. Frankly, we want Canadians to eat more fish and seafood and more domestic product. Any actions on traceability must also consider the bigger picture of the health benefits of eating seafood as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle. It would be unfortunate if there were any unintended consequences that reduced seafood consumption rather than reinforcing the benefits of increased consumption.

Fourth, from our own market research, we found that perceived cost was one of the main barriers to Canadians' consuming more fish and seafood. This ranked much higher than quality and sustainability considerations. This research result is similar to the broader results of the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity, which found that Canadians are most concerned about the cost of food, particularly in a pandemic.

Fifth, the FCC has urged the government to consider the trade-off between the prospective cost to industry and the consumer and the limited non-compliance as reported by CFIA's own investigation. Furthermore, we encourage the federal government to work with supply chain participants and to focus on specific problem areas within the supply chain to reduce the potential burdens on industry and the consumer while still working towards traceability commitments.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that. We'll get right to the questions as our time is getting short.

We'll go to Mr. Arnold for six minutes or less.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for being here.

It appears that we have two pieces to this traceability challenge, one being the importation of seafood into Canada, with the end consumer being here in Canada. The other piece is the exportation or consumption of Canadian-caught and -processed seafood. Where are the biggest gaps in the system right now? Is it in the importation or the exportation? How do we make sure we address that moving forward?

I'll start with Mr. Lansbergen and go to all three witnesses.

[Paul Lansbergen]

Thank you.

What I'll start with is that I'm going to look up some stats we have on imports. As has been said, over 70% of the domestic market is served by imports. Where do we get those imports from? Thirty-three per cent are from the U.S., 16% from China, 8% from Thailand, 8% from Vietnam and 5% from Chile, as the top five, which represent about 70% of our imports. What are we importing? From the U.S., a big part of it is lobster—

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

I'm sorry, Mr. Lansbergen, but my time is quite short. Can you can be a little more general, please?

[Paul Lansbergen]

Yes, imports for sure, but you also have to consider that the rules you impose on imports also, to a certain degree, have to apply to domestic production. Otherwise, you run afoul of trade rules, so that's an important consideration.

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

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Burridge.

[Christina Burridge]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

I indicated where I think the gaps are. Imports are clearly one, but particularly in small-scale retail and food service there's clearly a huge gap there. We need a lot more education there and, ultimately, enforcement, I think, and we do need to overhaul our labelling requirements, I believe.

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

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Strobel.

[Sonia Strobel]

I'll briefly reinforce what Ms. Burridge said.

From our perspective, what we see as the largest problem is imported seafood being incorrectly labelled in the marketplace, along with the difficulties for Canadian harvesters and Canadian small businesses to compete with that, and then the resulting blind eye that gets turned to that mislabelling and how that damages harvesters and consumers. From our perspective, I think it's the labelling of imported seafood that needs a very close look.

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

Thanks to all of you.

What we're hoping for out of this study is to come up with recommendations. How does Canada develop a system that's interoperable with those of other countries? We see that the European Union has a system that works quite well, from what we're hearing, while the U.S. has a system that is apparently not working so well. Where are the gaps in those two systems?

I'll start with Ms. Burridge this time, just to rotate the order.

[Christina Burridge]

I think it's useful to ask how well these systems are working. Certainly, I believe the EU system has been pretty successful in reducing IUU imports, but I think it has been less successful in terms of consumer labelling. Even though more things are required on the label in the EU than here in Canada, studies show that there's still a considerable amount of mislabelling, if you like, particularly at the restaurant level. I can testify to that myself.

At my end of the business, we already have those systems in place, so it would not be particularly difficult to come up with a comparable system, but we don't want paperwork for the sake of paperwork, so I think we really need to put our efforts into where the gaps are and how we would fix that.

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

Thank you.

You're next, Ms. Strobel.

[Sonia Strobel]

I don't have a lot of expertise in that area, so I'll keep it brief in the interests of time. I will just add that I think that enforcement is such a key piece of this. I know that there are things that are working well in the EU, but they only work well when they're enforced with something more than slap-on-the-wrist fines, because that's not a disincentive.

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

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Lansbergen.

[Paul Lansbergen]

I think both answers you just had are very good. I don't have anything more to add.

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

Thank you.

How can Canadian consumers distinguish between fish and seafood products that are sustainably and non-IUU caught and those that are not? Are there any systems being used here in Canada?

Mr. Lansbergen, you might know more....

[Paul Lansbergen]

The biggest thing that consumers can look for is certification. The labelling itself won't give you the answer. If there's a [Technical difficulty—Editor] harvested, such as the marine [Technical difficulty—Editor].... If you see that logo, you should know that it's sustainably caught.

As well, you can look to the reputation of your retailer and your restaurants. Do they have responsible sourcing programs so that they know what they're buying, and do they audit their suppliers occasionally? That can give you confidence as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold. Your time is up.

Mr. Lansbergen, I don't know if you have a poor connection, but it's being interrupted as you're speaking. I don't now if it's your connection or it's something on this end, but everybody else seems to sound fine.

We'll now go to Mr. Hardie, for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's good to see some familiar and friendly faces among our witnesses today.

Ms. Strobel, the one area in the domestic catch where there is temptation to misrepresent what has been caught would have to do with bycatch, where things are showing up in the nets that you're not supposed to have. Do you have any thoughts as to how big a problem that might be in B.C.?

[Sonia Strobel]

I think that it's fairly well managed through bycatch quotas.

When I referenced “rockfish”, that's one of the areas where we see that happening a lot. Some rockfish are abundant and very sustainable and some are not. In fact, some are endangered.

The quotas attempt to manage that. The harvester is not incentivized to harvest in an area where they might be catching more Bocaccio rockfish then, say, Quillback rockfish,because when they've fished and caught their maximum allowable quota of a Bocaccio rockfish, it shuts down their entire operation. The incentives I think are aligned well in the quota management system.

I think where that could be enhanced is that when we allow all rockfish to be called just “rockfish”.... I think we could further incentivize that, drive the price down for some of those fish, by labelling them. I think the consumer who's concerned about whether this is an abundant or sustainable rockfish would like to know if the one that's being caught is one of the endangered ones. I think it would further drive down the price of those rockfish and would drive up the price of the more sustainable rockfish.

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

Thank you for that.

Ms. Burridge, describe the state of the processing industry in British Columbia.

[Christina Burridge]

The processing industry is challenged by lack of fish, particularly salmon and herring. We are definitely seeing some consolidation there. On the other hand, groundfish stocks are pretty robust at the moment, and so it's a bit of a different story there.

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

I'm wondering if the decline in processing capability in B.C. leaves us more susceptible to foreign catch coming in, either processed offshore, which in the old days may have been processed in B.C., or some of the small operators.... You intimated a little earlier that some of those may not be terribly ethical.

Is that an area where we should also be focusing, in the national interest, in terms of our ability to process our own food?

[Christina Burridge]

I think we have more than adequate processing capacity here at the moment. However, I think you raised an interesting point, Mr. Hardie.

We fish far less salmon than we did even 10 years ago. I think when consumers go to a retail store or a restaurant and see something called “Pacific salmon”, they would like to know whether it comes from British Columbia, Alaska or Russia. There's certainly plenty of Russian sockeye in this market, though you would never know it from the labels.