Fisheries Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

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

Of course, salmon don't hold to any particular boundary. They swim back and forth at will, I suppose. Does it matter to know that a...?

I mean, it would matter to me if a piece of salmon came from Norway and was passed off as British Columbian, but should it make a difference if it's Russian or American?

[Christina Burridge]

I think consumers very much want to know where their food came from. Many, many consumers—Ms. Strobel knows this very well—want to buy local. At this point, we can't guarantee that.

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

Okay.

Mr. Lansbergen, one of the issues we would be looking at with respect to the catch that's being brought into Canada for sale is unfair competition as well as sustainability and the work that goes into catching and processing the fish offshore. Do you think our dumping regulations need to be looked at a little bit more carefully with respect to some of the product that's coming into the country?

[Paul Lansbergen]

That's a good question. My first reaction is to ask whether the products coming in are at such a low price that a dumping finding would be the result, or whether it's just that they have a lower cost of production for various reasons, and that gives them an advantage in the market.

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

Of course, if they're passing off a cheap fish as a more expensive one and undercutting our price, again, is that dumping or is that just another form of fraud? I suppose it's kind of a combination of the two.

Ms. Strobel, your business is based on having an informed client base. Is the average person out shopping for fish just looking at the price on the label without any thought for the mouseprint, which might even be under the label, that talks about where it came from, etc.? Do we have some serious education to do, or are we always going to be challenged by the fact that people will shop with their wallets and not their hearts?

[Sonia Strobel]

I think it's a bit of both, isn't it? We have seen an enormous growth in demand for the product that we have. Skipper Otto grew 50% last year. It grew 100% the year before. The demand for this kind of product is very great, and it's growing.

I think you're right that a certain percentage of the population has a lack of information—they don't know, or it isn't aligned with their values—and will always shop with their dollars first. Increasingly, I think, as people learn and as people have access to good information, they make different choices. I think the enormous explosion in popularity of films like Seaspiracy this past year, where audiences were just shocked to learn about injustices in seafood supply chains, shows that when people learn these kinds of things, they want to make choices. They can become apathetic when they go to the grocery store or the restaurant: “Look, I just can't get any information. I don't know what to do.” For many people, simply not eating seafood isn't a wise or healthy option. I think what consumers are hungry for, and what they're demanding, is more information.

So yes, we do have an education issue on our hands. I think we are amply capable of meeting that demand for education and satisfying that demand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Their comments are extremely informative.

I also want to thank the interpreters, who are doing a wonderful job.

I have a question for Ms. Strobel.

With the previous panel, we talked about the merits of creating a working group to examine the full range of considerations and options. Every group concerned would have a spot in the working group, whose objective would be to develop a real plan to address traceability. I even suggested creating the position of an auditor general for traceability.

You support the buy local movement and the labelling of local products, so what do you think of the idea?

[Sonia Strobel]

I think this is a wonderful idea. Absolutely we need to start with listening. I've spoken many times before, even here with the committee, about active listening and about starting by listening. There's so much innovation in Canada and so much creative thinking that when we put the task to people to innovate, people rise to that challenge. I think having a committee with broad representation—harvesters, retailers, processors, chefs, consumers—is so important. I think that's where we're going to innovate and create.

That's what we are always doing at Skipper Otto. Let's not just accept that this is the way it's always been and therefore that's good enough. Let's put smart minds together and innovate and come up with better ways. I'm 100% with you on that.

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

I'd like to hear where the other witnesses stand on the idea.

I want to stress the fact that, in Quebec, support for buy local initiatives is quite strong. I would hope a great many Canadian consumers believe in buying local as well, and are willing to invest even just a dollar more to support Canadian and Quebec harvesters.

From that standpoint, don't you think a real traceability plan would be helpful in solving the problems we are talking about today? I mean a robust plan that builds on the very reasons that make traceability so important.

The question is for Ms. Burridge or Mr. Lansbergen.

[Paul Lansbergen]

Can I start?

I think one of the facts that are getting missed is, as Christina and I articulated, that the processing level is supplying a lot of that information: through the supply chain, to the wholesalers, to food service, restaurants and retail. As those organizations and partners along the chain [Technical difficulty—Editor], part of the issue is that not all of that information is being transferred directly to the end consumer. Certainly some consumers, as Ms. Strobel clearly indicated, want to buy more local, and they want more information. As Mr. Hardie said, a lot of consumers are buying with their wallet rather than [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I think it really depends on what consumers want and where the gaps are in delivering what they want.

I think a lot of the information is there; it's just not being transferred right down. I would encourage the government to continue the dialogue with everyone along the supply chain.

[Christina Burridge]

I will add to that by saying that, as Mr. Lansbergen said, clearly at the processing end, we have all that information. We export to the EU, so we have to be able to provide that information. That's not an issue. The issue becomes at what point we fix the gaps down the system. Certainly we'd be happy to participate in some kind of a task force.

[Sonia Strobel]

Can I add to that?

Ms. Burridge and Mr. Lansbergen have pointed out that the problem isn't so much that we don't know this information about Canadian-processed seafood but that we're not demanding that the information come to the end consumer. Therefore, we are leaving it up to this market, in which a retailer might say that they can make a higher profit if they don't pass that information along. To me, that shouldn't be allowed. That's where we do need to step in and say that the consumer can decide what they would like to do. Perhaps there is a piece of this fish that is more expensive. You know it's expensive because it's Canadian—that's where it comes from—and this other piece is cheaper, and here's why. You can make that choice, but if we don't provide that information, I think we're doing a disservice.

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

We heard that Canada was losing a significant share of the market because of a lack of traceability.

Is it reasonable to think that the government should make an investment equivalent to the loss in order to build a more robust regime? In the short and medium term, better traceability would lead to better results on a number of fronts: exports, imports and the buy local movement.

[Sonia Strobel]

Yes, I absolutely think so. I think the number given this morning, $94 million in lost tax revenue, was due to our not capturing that. It seems very clear to me that there's an easy way to be funding some of this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens. Your time is up.

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

Go ahead, please.

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

I appreciate that both Ms. Burridge and Mr. Lansbergen mentioned the concerns around additional costs being passed on to consumers as a challenge for new regulation. I'm really reflecting on this conversation, because we absolutely want seafood to be affordable—I'm sure we can all agree—so that people can consume this really important source of food, but of course there are also the environmental repercussions as a result of not having labelling done appropriately and, on the health side as well, the impacts on us as human beings who are consuming seafood that is inferior.

We all know, of course, that regulation benefits all of us, and we also know that by not having these regulations in place, as we're hearing first-hand from Ms. Strobel, there are impacts on organizations that are doing it right, like Skipper Otto, which is labelling appropriately. This is impacting organizations such as Skipper Otto.

I have some concerns around this, I think, just in looking at the affordability. It's one variable of a bigger picture. I think we're all in agreement on that. I'm wondering if Mr. Lansbergen or Ms. Burridge might be able to speak a bit around what we saw in the EU when the regulations were put into place. Did we see an increased impact on consumers and the prices increasing on seafood as a result of regulations?

[Paul Lansbergen]

Thank you. I'll make a quick comment.

I don't have a specific answer for you on the impact of the EU regulations, but in regard to one comment that you did make about the broader context of the issue and about seafood being healthy, seafood is also more sustainable than other land-based protein. If we saw a decrease of fish and seafood consumption and more land-based proteins, that might actually decrease the sustainability of our entire food system or our overall food system. Definitely, there are some bigger-picture considerations that need to be thought of.

[Christina Burridge]

If I could add to that, Ms. Barron, my point was not so much that we should be avoiding or not coming up with new requirements, but just not imposing an extra set of entirely different requirements on a sector of the industry that is already fully traceable.

Again, I think it's the point at which you introduce this and, of course, it does become more complicated, because, really, we're talking about a world where there are a lot of actors rather than just a few actors, so it's more complicated to implement at that stage.

In regard to any thought of a task force or a working group, I think it's going to be, how do you bring in those people who are currently not really participating in the system effectively at the moment?

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

Thank you so much for that information.

I think that ultimately, for me, I would like to—and perhaps this question isn't best directed at the witnesses here at this point—understand the price for consumers as a result of the regulations in the EU. It would be a further question that I would like to have some clarification around.

For the witnesses who are here today, specifically Ms. Strobel, it's great to see that Skipper Otto has done a lot of great work in demonstrating that “boat to plate” is possible. It helps fishers and it helps people who are willing to pay a premium. We know that people are willing to pay a premium if they know they're getting a genuine product. Can you talk a bit more about the economic benefits to fishing families of the model that you have implemented through Skipper Otto?

[Sonia Strobel]

I think one of the most important benefits to harvesters is to know in advance of the season that you have pre-sold your catch. It takes out the uncertainty of where and what the best market will be for your catch. Without the Skipper Otto model, so much uncertainty falls to fishing families at the start of the season or in the middle of the season. They take on the burden of debt to get operations up and running, and then they're just at the whim of global markets and currencies and supply in other parts of the world. There's just so much uncertainty. That tends to fall quite heavily on the shoulders of harvesters.

In the Skipper Otto model, when members prepurchase, members agree to “eat with the ecosystem”, as we say. They agree that what is abundant and sustainable and harvested this year is what we will eat. For example, if there is a low sockeye harvest this year, I know that there's going to be coho salmon, like I have here, and our members will choose that. It takes out that uncertainty, at the start of the season, as to whether a harvester will be able to earn a living wage off the fishery.

We're able to funnel that money directly to harvesters. In many cases, that means more than what they would be getting somewhere else. But beyond just a higher dollar value, a higher price per pound, it's also that certainty, that security, that they get from that direct connection to the harvesters.

I think there is some important piece there in having lean supply chains that enable the story of where the seafood comes from to be told, but also allow for a higher dollar value to flow to the harvester.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. Your time is up. Sorry.

We'll now go to Mr. Small.

You have five minutes or less, please.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Right on.

I have a question for you, Mr. Lansbergen. Last week we heard from CFIA that their investigation was not fully representative of the domestic market, that it was focused on species with a higher likelihood to be misrepresented. Do you have a perspective on that? Is it a shortcoming that we should be concerned about?

[Paul Lansbergen]

Thank you. [Technical difficulty—Editor] higher than [Technical difficulty—Editor] sample is not fully representative of the marketplace.

I think my Internet was a little slow there. Hopefully you're hearing me.

When we look at the major commodities or species that are consumed by Canadians, it's salmon at 33%, shrimp at 24%, tuna at 7% and then it goes down from there. I think the listing they provide covers about 20%, or maybe a little bit more, of the marketplace. I think the rate of compliance is actually much higher than 92%.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

In terms of the cost of implementing more traceability, do you have any thoughts on that?