Fisheries Committee on Nov. 28th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

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

Thank you. I believe my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You're a little bit over.

We'll now go to Mr. Cormier for five minutes or less, please.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll start with the elver eel fishery. As my colleague was saying, this situation has made headlines in Canada, and even internationally. There are people who were conducting illegal activities while the fishing season was closed.

How many pounds or kilograms of elvers did you seize at the border?

[Daniel Anson]

Specific to the one enforcement action that I recall, without researching it I can't speak to the volume of seized elver eels. Based on the fact that it was an official enforcement action, it's something we can return to the committee with should you wish to know the size, quantity, weight or any of the details of that.

However, in the more recent history, we have not had any enforcement actions specific to elver eels destined for export.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I would be grateful if you could inform the committee of the quantity of elver eels that have been seized, this year.

I'll continue along the same lines. When you know that a fishery is closed, there should be collaboration between the various authorities like yours, that is, the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, probably, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada so that all are informed, for example, that the lobster fishery is closed, and that there should be no export of lobster across the border.

When a fishery or other operation is closed, do you inform your agents at the various ports of entry that there are illegal activities and that they should keep an eye on these activities?

[Daniel Anson]

That is something we can look into. I do not know how many fisheries are specifically focused on elver eels. If there is only one source of legitimate harvesting of elver eels and that fishery is closed, then it would make sense that there may not be any exports specific to that item, to that commodity. However, the other part of your question was specific to the seizures for this year. We have not had any seizures of elver eels this specific year. We have effected a variety of different examinations to ensure compliance and have not found anything that was illicit or destined abroad that had been harvested illegally or was the result of unreported fishing.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Just to be sure, in the first question I asked if you seized some elvers and you said you will get back to the committee with some numbers, but now you just said you didn't seize any this past season. Those are shipped across this country, so it must be shipped from some port of entry or whatever. I would appreciate it if we could have some numbers if there were some that were seized.

I'll get to my next question.

In the last couple of years we saw that the export of our lobster and crabs had enormous growth. Millions and millions of pounds of lobster, for example, are shipped from Moncton airport, and I think some from Halifax airport also, mostly to China.

Let's say there is a plane that has a million pounds on it, which you see on the packing slip, or whatever you call it, the paper. The fish plant will say there's a million pounds in this shipment. How do you know exactly if there is a million pounds and there is not 1.2 million pounds or 1.5 million pounds?

Is there something that you verify, or do you just look at the slip and there's one million pounds and you're good to go and the shipment is gone? Is there a mechanism that your agents have whereby they can monitor if it's the right number of pounds in those shipments?

[Daniel Anson]

Unless my colleague has anything to add to that, we have a variety of different verification methods in place. I cannot speak from memory whether weighing the products is part of that. It's usually done by volume, size and an assessment of the shipment itself and the product. Specific to a million pounds of lobster destined for China, it's something I would have to return to the committee on to give you a fulsome answer and to ensure that I do not misreport should we not necessarily weigh. If we do, then I would like to give you more details as to how we achieve that.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Please, Mr. Chair, can we have that mechanism they use?

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll go now to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes or less.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Earlier, I was asking if you kept a register and statistics on the profile of offenders and which species are seized more than others.

Would it be possible to have documentation in this regard? We would be grateful.

I don't have much time, but I'd like to know if, in your work as a whole, there are any elements that could be improved. It's the role of the committee to know the particular problems that concern you. Do you lack agents, boats, financial resources or technological tools?

What could be done to deter offenders while maximizing the efficiency of your work?

[Daniel Anson]

Thank you for the question.

The first and most important response is that I believe we do have the right tools and that we have some of the most well-trained officers of any nation. I have a great degree of faith in what they do and how they achieve it.

In terms of the different gaps, there is a variety of different noted gaps if you study the seafood industry. Typically, it does apply to a variety of things that don't.... I'm not necessarily highlighting it as a gap for the agency, but it is resource-intensive. To focus on Nova Scotia as an example, there are 13,300 kilometres of coastline, so the prevalence of small boats conducting illegal fishing as well as boats that hover beyond our economic exclusion zone are areas that we may or may not even have the ability to monitor or surveil or, in some cases, have the authority to interdict. There is a variety of gaps.

Specific to the agency's tools, resources and people, we have a sufficient number of resources applied to the task commensurate with the level of priority that this is for the agency, but I suspect that when you are dealing with the tactical level, where the actual fishing and harvesting are occurring, those gaps would likely require a significant number of resources, people and surveillance and the ability to interdict small boats. It's very difficult to have a culture of compliance and to monitor a wide variety of very intensive offshore activities as well.

Those gaps are quite inherent, but I would also defer to a lot of our partner agencies and police of jurisdiction, who likely are more qualified to speak to what the gaps are in the identification of illegal fishing. On issues like this, we have a variety of different projects and working groups where we do focus on this particular threat stream. We work hand in hand with all of our partner agencies.

To continue on the example of the marine security operations centres, we have the RCMP, Fisheries and Oceans, the Coast Guard and a variety of other partners there. We do work together. That facilitates a lot of information sharing, but most importantly, awareness of what the different regional challenges are.

We are well equipped, and we have been successful in achieving a lot of targets, lookouts and examinations on behalf of the department and agencies that hold the legislation we enforce, but again, I would suspect that maybe some of the more regional operational teams might have a more qualified opinion or response.

Thank you again for your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'll continue with my questions for Mr. Anson. Following some of what you were discussing around many partners working together and some of the regional challenges, you mentioned that you felt well equipped.

Can you speak a bit about any challenges you are seeing? I know that often in these large systems, when we have many different departments working in different areas, sometimes there can be a breakdown in communication or sometimes there can be challenges in getting information in a timely manner between one department and another.

Are you experiencing any of those challenges? What are some improvements that you can see that could happen and could have people working together in a really timely manner to address the bigger issues we're seeing around illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing?

[Daniel Anson]

Thank you for the question.

I'm very content with the system that we have. The national targeting centre serves as a central node for a lot of the departments and agencies that hold the legislation, and that gives a lot of our partners a direct line to the people who will coordinate and effect a target examination. That is one success.

An additional layer of success would be that we have tremendous interoperability with our domestic partners on security intelligence. We do share information. We have mechanisms in place that allow us to—with authority—share intel or information that can see either a domestic enforcement action or potentially an action at the border for an examination and potentially the interdiction and seizure of goods.

The last thing I would add to that in terms of maybe elucidating some of the successes here is that those marine security operations centres are very much designed to allow us to sit alongside the people who have a vested and regional interest in the security and the compliance and in ensuring that illegal, unreported fishing does not occur. We have a variety of different methods whereby we can very quickly, in almost real time, provide a response on behalf of the agency. An officer will respond to, for example, a CFIA target when they want an examination to ensure that certain goods are not coming into or leaving Canada illegally or coming into Canada and might pose a threat to our ecosystems. Those are really great systems in place.

Again, to go back to the national targeting centre, it's a very high-performing area full of targeting officers who take this very seriously. A lot of them have regional roots in some of these communities and locations and, in addition to the professional dedication, there is an enhanced motivation to ensure compliance.

Those are the successes. In terms of the gaps, other than the implicit ones or the ones we discussed in terms of the identification of illegal fishing, I couldn't necessarily expand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Bragdon for five minutes or less.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

It's Mr. Small.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Small, you're up for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Anson, in your preamble, you highlighted that the CBSA facilitates the flow of legitimate products and assists DFO in controlling coastal IUU fisheries. If a member of the public has suspicions about IUU fish exporting, is there a means for them to report those suspicions to you?

[Daniel Anson]

In that circumstance, it would likely apply to the police of jurisdiction, whether it's the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary or the RCMP. Depending on the locale, there would likely be law enforcement to receive those tips.

In addition, however, specific to the CBSA—again, this is several layers away from where the offence may be occurring—we also have our own tip line within our border operations centre, which allows us to be in a position to respond to any tips that might be specific to exports. However, when there is illegal, unregulated or unreported fishing occurring locally, it would very much defer to the police of jurisdiction, who, I imagine, have that type of system in place.

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

Thank you.

I was getting at the export side of it, not the capturing of the fish. Can you give the committee a brief explanation of the step-by-step process that would be followed after the receipt from the public of suspicious exporting activities of IUU fisheries products?

[Daniel Anson]

We have a variety. It turns out that we have a specific 1-888 number available online as well, where people can report these types of activities.

Our interest lies not only in the export of specific products or shipments but also in the networks behind it. Where there is particularly networked or organized criminality behind it, that's very much where we focus, because attacking the networks or the crime behind the event is getting more to the root of the issue.

That is part of the reason why I also mentioned the utility and efficiency of working very much hand in hand with our police of jurisdiction partners. In those circumstances, where there is a lawful requirement to share, we will transfer the information reported to us. Whether or not we have the mandate and authority, we will ensure it gets into the right hands of law enforcement agencies, so there can be an action. Potentially, in this case, it might even be either Criminal Code or regulatory non-compliance.

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

Have you ever intercepted suspicious fish products that you thought might be IUU, reported them to another agency and been instructed on whether to act or turn a blind eye? Do you think that could be happening?

[Daniel Anson]

Mr. Chair, we would not turn a blind eye. This is the one certitude I would state, following that.

However, I do not have a full list of all enforcement actions on suspected illegal exports of fish or seafood products. That is something we can certainly verify.

The only instance I can recall is the example I provided to the other member of the committee, which occurred a number of years ago. I believe it was through the Toronto Pearson airport. That would have been an example where that type of coordination, enforcement action and collaboration with our law enforcement partners occurred.

However, we take this exceptionally seriously. We do not ever turn a blind eye. There will always be some kind of response—even if it's after the event—to at least contribute to our intelligence and profile awareness of potential illicit actors, so we can take measures, inform our targeting rules and try to catch that event. Targeting must be iterative in nature. We learn from every single incident and circumstance of contravention.