Evidence of meeting #89 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was illegal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you for sharing that.
I am wondering if you could expand a little further on the patterns and trends that you were talking about for the smuggling we're seeing related to fishing products.
What are some of those? Are we seeing an increase? Can you share a little of that information?
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
It would be a pleasure.
In terms of compliance or any attempts to smuggle contraband fish, seafood, etc., into or out of Canada—for import or export—there is not necessarily a high volume. We have not noticed a significant threat of late.
Through our national targeting centre, we run different types of targeting models that are very much designed to catch these types of illicit or nefarious activities. For the most part, those have largely surfaced administrative non-compliance. We have not noticed any real patterns of shipping or illegal shipping.
In addition, we enforce a variety of partner-department target requests. That would be the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or Fisheries and Oceans Canada requesting that the CBSA examine goods due for export or potentially for import. In such cases, we are very diligent and quickly respond to partner-department requests. In those cases, we have not necessarily seen a pattern or trend.
That does not necessarily negate the fact that illegal, unregulated or unreported fishing is occurring. However, at the ports of export, we would say that we're not necessarily noting a pattern or trend that is problematic. I would say the same thing for import, but that requires the crossing of an international border and does not negate that this might be a local, municipal or regional issue that is obviously affecting many Canadians.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Ms. Barron.
We'll now go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less, please.
November 28th, 2023 / 11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to both witnesses for being here. I'll start with Mr. Anson, I guess.
I believe you said that all exports of seafood products from Canada require export permits. Is that correct?
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Commercial Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
It's not necessarily all. There are some exemptions going to the U.S.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Commercial Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
That's correct.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Basically, the elver fishery in eastern Canada and Atlantic Canada was completely shut down this year. Is that correct?
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Commercial Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
I am unaware of it being shut down. I can't speak to that.
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Commercial Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
I am unaware.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Was CBSA not aware that the season was closed for the elver fishery?
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Commercial Programs, Canada Border Services Agency
I wouldn't say that it was CBSA. I would say that I was not aware of the....
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Perhaps Mr. Anson could answer.
Was CBSA aware that the elver fishery was closed?
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
There may have been CBSA regional resources that were aware that an elver or an eel facility may have shut down, but I cannot state for certain.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
That's surprising, because this was all over the news in Atlantic Canada and across the country.
With the fishery being closed, there would not have been, supposedly, any elver for export. Would that make sense?
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
The statement makes sense. I can't speak to how many other fisheries conducting the same activity may have been open, but, if it is the only fishery and it's shutdown, then it would make sense that there were no exports of elver eels.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Would CBSA be aware of how many export permits were issued for elvers in 2023?
11:30 a.m.
Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
I would suspect yes. We would likely have statistics on how many elver eel exports were deemed for abroad.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Could we get that information provided to the committee in writing, please?
For either one of you, what revenue streams for the government would be impacted by illegal or unauthorized exports of Canada's seafood?
11:35 a.m.
Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
I would not be qualified to speak to all the different economic impacts, other than that it would have one as well as a much more severe impact on municipal and regional interests.
All imports and exports have an effect on our economy. I wouldn't be able to stratify specifically the different types or aspects of the economy.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Would taxes payable on the export of goods and the harvest of goods and royalties, if there were such, be lost if goods were exported without permits and illegally?
11:35 a.m.
Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
Illegal exports inherently have all sorts of impacts, such as the loss of revenue, the avoidance of revenue to the consolidated revenue fund for the Government of Canada and also local taxes or provincial taxes that may or may not have been paid. The same circumstance would exist with all trade fraud and trade-based money laundering. There are a lot of revenue evasion methods that are implicit in those types of activities, so yes, I would confirm that.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
As for imports into Canada, we've seen reports, broadly publicized reports, of illegal fisheries taking place in international waters, some of them involving basically human slavery and human rights' issues.
What role does CBSA have in monitoring the imports of those products into Canada?
11:35 a.m.
Director General, Intelligence and Investigations, Canada Border Services Agency
Our role would be ensuring full compliance in that only legal and lawfully declared or fished products are admitted into Canada.
In terms of this fishing activity outside of our economic zones, we don't necessarily have oversight or a mandate specifically. However, there may be a different role through our governmental partners that might be manifested in the marine security operations centres, which also provide a bit of an oversight of certain types of fishing. I don't know what their geographical constraints may be.
Specific to the other part of the question, we are very much focused on ensuring that only lawfully employed foreign nationals, Canadians, permanent residents and temporary workers are employed with any potential fishing venture or companies. In those circumstances, the CBSA does have a separate area that focuses on ensuring that there is compliance with IRPA, the Immigration Refugee Protection Act, and I believe section 124 applies to the lawful employment of foreign nationals only with authority to do so.
That is something that we are focused on as a mandate. In circumstances where we are doing risk assessments of commercial vessels where there are foreign workers, we will in many circumstances also ensure that they are appropriately documented and that the employers are employing them lawfully.