Fisheries Committee on Nov. 28th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Welcome to meeting number 89 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

Before we proceed, I want to remind members to be very careful when handling the earpieces, especially when your microphone or your neighbour's microphone is turned on. Earpieces placed too close to a microphone are one of the most common causes of sound feedback, which is extremely harmful for interpreters and cause serious injuries.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on January 18, 2022, the committee is resuming its study on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

For our first hour, joining us from the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Daniel Anson, director general, intelligence and investigations. Accompanying him, we have Cathy Toxopeus, director general, commercial programs.

Welcome to the committee.

Mr. Anson, you have up to five minutes for your opening statement.

[Daniel Anson, Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning. I'm Dan Anson, and I am the director general of intelligence and investigations within the intelligence and enforcement branch of the CBSA. With me is Cathy Toxopeus, DG of commercial programs within the commercial and trade branch.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the committee's study of illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries and share with the committee the roles and responsibilities of the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, in the monitoring of fish and seafood imports and exports.

The CBSA facilitates the flow of legitimate trade and enforces more than 100 acts and regulations that keep our country and Canadians safe. With respect to fish and seafood, the CBSA plays an indirect role by verifying that other government department requirements are met for seafood being imported into and exported from Canada, as well as administering the Customs Act.

The policies governing the importation and exportation of fish, seafood, seafood products and shellfish are established by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and Environment and Climate Change Canada. The CBSA works closely with other government departments to support them and to ensure that fish and seafood importations and exports are compliant with established policies. These activities primarily include verifying that any required licences, permits, certificates or other documentation required to import and export the goods to and from Canada are provided.

The CBSA assists DFO with the enforcement of the aquatic invasive species regulations and the import prohibition of shark fins under the Fisheries Act. It also assists with trade tracking for certain species of tuna, swordfish and toothfish, as well as illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing under the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act and related regulations.

The CBSA also assists ECCC with the administration of the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act, or WAPPRIITA, which governs illegal wildlife trade and the importation and exportation of species protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The CBSA is responsible for ensuring that goods being imported to or exported from Canada are compliant with partner government agency program legislation and regulations. The CBSA's role is to enforce these acts and policies as they apply at Canadian border points of entry or exit.

The agency fulfills this role by employing a layered and comprehensive risk-based approach, including assessing pre-arrival data, sharing intelligence, reviewing ongoing emerging threats, issuing targets and lookouts, conducting examinations and inspections, seizing or detaining goods where required, and issuing penalties for non-compliance. The CBSA regularly updates directions to frontline officers to manage the handling, interdiction or release of at-risk goods.

To increase compliance, the CBSA enforces an administrative monetary penalty system for contraventions to the governing legislation. Under this system, border officers may issue monetary penalties to importers and exporters who fail to provide true, accurate and complete information in the import or export declarations.

As a final point, the agency is continuously working to improve not only our relationship with our partners but also our collective intelligence and enforcement capabilities and our operations, and seeking to build on lessons learned and our successes.

This concludes my opening remarks.

Along with my colleague, I'm very happy to take any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Anson.

We'll go right to questions now with Mr. Small for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out today and helping us with a very important study.

Mr. Anson, does salmon require export permits in Canada?

[Daniel Anson]

Specific to salmon, for any type of export, there is a certain amount of requirement to report what is being exported.

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

Does the same apply to lobster?

[Daniel Anson]

I'm not specifically aware of what all the different permit requirements are for each individual commodity or type of fish, but it's something that we could verify and stratify for the committee, if required, in writing.

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

It's the same for eels and baby eels, I guess.

[Daniel Anson]

Again, I think there is a variety of different layers of legislation and regulatory frameworks that apply to those different types of fish and fish products, or anything that is harvested. We do have a variety of different compliance mechanisms in place that will require the surfacing of those types of information.

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

Thank you.

I'm wondering if the Minister of Fisheries flagged to CBSA, in this year that we have behind us here, that illegal offshore or baby eels may be destined to be exported either by road or by air in the Maritimes.

Did the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans flag that to your department?

[Daniel Anson]

I cannot speak to whether or not the minister had informed our department.

What I would say is that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is certainly an issue for the CBSA, and we ensure that we have compliance measures in place to find and to intervene where illegal exports are destined abroad. The variety of different export mechanisms or the different modes would require anything from road...and there's air and marine commercial. We have officers that are specifically focused on ensuring there is compliance and that only legal products are destined for overseas.

I cannot speak to any conversations that the minister may have had with any of our senior officials within the CBSA. However, I would state that it is something we are very much attuned to, and we have a variety of different types of operational activities specifically designed to identify and intervene for illegal shipments destined abroad.

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

For example, if a tractor-trailer load of lobster were to cross the border into Maine in August, would you check into that load of lobster or could that just sail right on through unchecked?

[Daniel Anson]

My colleague may have something to add, but for doing cross-border commercial shipments, there is a certain amount of reporting required that would be verified on export. In addition, Customs and Border Protection in the United States also have their own measures that they apply at the border to ensure that these are safe and legitimate exports.

In a situation such as that which you are identifying as a case study, there are various layers of law enforcement regulatory measures that are in place that would hopefully have identified that beforehand. Illegal or unreported fishing, harvesting and then export abroad is something that we do certainly try to catch, but that is one method that illicit actors may attempt to use to circumvent established procedures. However, paperwork is required at the border for export.

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

Paperwork is required at the border. How many truckloads of lobster, semis or larger tractor-trailer loads crossed the border in Maine this year? If you don't know, you can submit that in writing.

Also, what flags were raised by you, and was that reported back to the Minister of Fisheries? If you don't have that information, you could submit it in writing, please.

[Daniel Anson]

We ensure that there is an enforcement layer and certainly compliance. We do not necessarily track the trade data. However, based on the systems that we have, we may be able to capture that information, as you requested and as the committee requires, and would commit to submit whatever we can to identify how many of the commercial motor vehicles may have been destined for the United States through the main ports of exit.

In terms of flags, in a situation like that, if something had happened without our knowledge, then no flags would have been presented. However, we do have fairly comprehensive targeting and intelligence programs that support the identification of illicit activities. In a situation such as that, whether a business, a mode of export or an individual that may have previous enforcement actions, or a variety of other indicators, may have surfaced something that is destined for export as a potential issue, that would have flagged something for examination in certain circumstances. We would also expect that the same would apply to our U.S. CBP colleagues as they have their own indicators that they enforce at their own borders.

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

We had a lot of reports of IUU baby eels being shipped from Nova Scotia this past spring. I would like for you to submit to the committee in writing the details of the inspections you made and any sources of irregularity, missing permits, captures, infractions and things like that that took place with elvers this past spring, please.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

We'll now go to, I believe, Mr. Morrissey for six minutes or less.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Through you to Mr. Anson, could you elaborate a bit more? You used the term “compliance measures”, which you take at the Canada-U.S border. Could you expand a bit on what those measures are as they relate to seafood entering the U.S.? I'm just referencing from Canada to the U.S.

[Daniel Anson]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Chair.

Specifically, there's an amount of administrative reporting or a number of permits that need to be sought for certain types of exports. The compliance measures are those that would surface all the types of information that are important to us. That lets us know what is coming from where, who achieved it, who harvested the fish in this particular instance and what its destination might be. That also allows us to verify what end use or destination countries, areas, regions or ports for export they might be going to.

The compliance measures are a tool for us to enable our targeting program to ensure that there is the greatest amount of compliance and that actors are conforming to regulatory or legislation regimes and frameworks.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Could you expand a bit on the targeting program?

[Daniel Anson]

Absolutely. It's my pleasure to expand on the targeting program.

Our national targeting centre, the NTC, is a 24-7, fairly large, robust and extremely capable targeting centre that applies scenario-based targets, algorithms, intelligence, research and open-source research to ensure that we are doing our best to secure the borders. The variety of different targets may apply to anything from illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing to national security risks, as well as other key priorities for border security, such as firearms, contraband and illegal drugs—unregulated drugs like fentanyl, etc.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Chair, to be clear, to which minister does the CBSA report?

[Daniel Anson]

The CBSA reports to the Minister of Public Safety.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Going back to the compliance measures that you would take at the border, we'll use the scenario my colleague raised earlier about a tractor-trailer load. We'll use lobster arriving at the border. For the information you would check, who provides the information to you? Is it the processor who is shipping the product?

[Cathy Toxopeus, Director General, Commercial Programs, Canada Border Services Agency]

The exporter provides the information to us through our export system. They fill out the export documentation, which we review.