Fisheries Committee on March 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call this meeting to order.

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

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on January 18, 2022, the committee is resuming its study of the traceability of fish and seafood products.

This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021.

Interpretation services are available for this meeting. Please inform me immediately if interpretation is lost, and we'll ensure that it is restored before resuming.

I have a couple of housekeeping matters before we begin hearing witnesses.

Members have received study budgets by email: one for this study, and another for the study on flood control and mitigation systems in British Columbia. Are there any objections to adopting these budgets today before moving forward?

I see no objections. We'll say they passed by consent.

As you know, at the end of March, we will begin the study of marine cargo container spills. Could we agree to a deadline for submitting witness lists to the clerk by Friday, March 4, at 5 p.m.? Is everybody okay with that? Don't forget. Thank you.

I now welcome our witnesses for the first panel today.

We have Ms. Claire Canet, from Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie, RPPSG.

The second group is from Metro Inc. We have Alexandra Leclerc, manager responsible for procurement. She will be accompanied by legal counsel, Ms. Marie-Eve Goulet.

Witnesses appearing before committee may be assisted by counsel, but they must seek the committee's permission in order to be there and hear what's going on. Please be advised that counsel will be restricted to an advisory role and may neither ask questions nor reply on the witness's behalf.

Is the committee in agreement to let Ms. Goulet stay on Zoom?

I hear no dissent. That's all agreed.

Now we will proceed with opening remarks.

Ms. Canet, you have five minutes or less, please.

[Claire Canet, Project Officer, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Claire Canet, and I have been a project officer at the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie, or RPPSG, since 2017. The acronym is the same in English and French.

More specifically, I manage projects involving the traceability of Gaspé lobster and new technology tools, such as the JOBEL electronic logbook for reporting catches, which are the cornerstone of any seafood products traceability system. In the past two years, I have also worked on electronic data governance issues in the fisheries sector.

RPPSG is currently the only fishing organization in Quebec that has implemented and maintained a lobster identification system with the assistance of Quebec's Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation, or MAPAQ. Since 2012, a tag identifying the origin of Gaspé lobster has been attached to the claws of 100% of lobsters fished in our region in the spring. As a result of RPPSG's efforts, this fishery is now certified MSC by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Tagging is an easy and effective way for consumers to see the origin of their lobsters, even allowing for a percentage of tags that are lost when processors put them in tanks for disgorging. However, some grocery chains unconcerned about product origin sell what they call Gaspé lobster when no lobsters in the tank are tagged or the elastic bands on their claws have been replaced by the distributor. I want to emphasize here that I am absolutely not talking about Metro, which, on the contrary, has been an excellent partner. Many large fish markets have told us over the years that they have received whole cases of live untagged lobster passed off as originating in Gaspé.

This challenges the distributors' role and commitment to promote the traceability of our seafood products. The most flagrant example of this practice occurred in 2017, when the Costco chain organized a major Magdalen Islands lobster promotion when the fishery wasn't even open.

Furthermore, if the lobster is cooked by a processor, the tags are removed and lobster lots of various origins, including American lobster, are mixed together. Consequently, there is no guarantee that the end consumer can be certain the label on the processed product indicates the lobster's true origin, unless the processor's plant is equipped with lots-origin logistics.

However, new technologies help introduce traceability systems and better lot management, whether by the fisherman, the processor or the distributor.

For example, the JOBEL electronic logbook for reporting the fisherman's catches, based on technical standards established by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, contains the basic data needed for any traceability system, including landing date, origin, legality of harvest, fisherman and quantities landed. However, for this information to be integrated with a plant's traceability data, systems that can communicate and exchange data with each other must be put in place. This problem arises for all systems used in the value chain. Consequently, every traceability system must meet a set of technical specifications specific and common to all stakeholders in the value chain, once systems have first been harmonized.

The communication of certain information from the fisherman to the other stakeholders in the value chain raises a number of basic problems. This is information that concerns the very core of the commercial activity of a fisherman, who is the only party authorized to exploit public fishing resources, and that, like all the information of a private business, must be protected and kept confidential.

The seafood products catch sector is of increasing interest to investors and businesses, which pursue a vertical integration approach and for which input control is essential. Since the independence of commercial fishermen is a fundamental principle under the Fisheries Act and regulations, the protection, confidentiality and conditions of use of fishing data is central to any traceability system, and independent fishermen must be central players in the design and development of such systems.

Furthermore, fishing resources are public resources that generate billions of dollars in revenue for coastal communities and the provinces. Thousands of Canadian businesses of all sizes depend on this resource, and seafood is necessary to ensuring Canada's food independence.

For all these reasons, I believe that every seafood products traceability system must be put in place and governed by provincial public authorities rather than private businesses, which might be tempted to exploit the metadata of the entire value chain for private commercial purposes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to Mrs. Leclerc for five minutes or less, please.

[Alexandra Leclerc, Manager, Procurement, Metro Inc.]

Thank you for inviting me to speak before this committee. It is a pleasure to virtually be here.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Alexandra Leclerc, and I am the procurement manager for Metro.

Metro is a Canadian retailer that generates annual revenue of more than $18 billion and operates in the food and pharmacy industries mainly in Quebec and Ontario. You are probably familiar with some of our brands, including Metro, Super C, Food Basics, Jean Coutu, Brunet and others.

The traceability of fish and seafood is a new theme at Metro. It's part of a comprehensive approach to corporate responsibility that dates back to 2010, when the company adopted its policy on sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. That policy covers all our seafoods, whether fresh, frozen, canned, processed or otherwise.

The policy is based on the following five procurement principles: healthy species, responsible operating methods, traceability, respect for workers and socioeconomic development. In all honesty, however, although those five principles are important, traceability is the main pillar of our policy. In fact, it's a prerequisite for our suppliers.

This means that Metro systematically requires that all its suppliers submit a complete traceability for all the products they offer, even before we list them or place an order. That traceability is used to evaluate their products. We conduct a survey of the literature and scientific data to ensure that our product is consistent with the first two principles, healthy species and responsible operating methods.

Traceability is based on five major elements.

The first is the scientific name of the species, its Latin name, which is unique to every species. By using its name, we can be sure we are speaking the same language as our suppliers. This is a challenge in some instances as certain industry players are not used to, or not very comfortable with, the scientific nomenclature. However, we believe that the use of common names is not enough and that they present a risk because some can be very vague or general or refer to several different species.

The second element of complete traceability is geographic provenance, which we define as the place where the item was caught, fished or raised. This is also a challenge because it is often confused with the product's country of origin, which is defined under Canadian legislation as the place of last major processing. These two elements are not always identical and in fact are rarely so. Any confusion between the two makes matters all the more difficult for retailers because, to assess the sustainability of a product, they must know where it comes from; they have to know its geographic provenance.

The third element of a complete traceability is the capture type. The item may be a wild product or a farmed product.

The fourth element is operating method: the fishing gear used or the type of aquaculture.

The fifth element is the determination whether the product is certified or the product of sustainability initiatives.

Once the product is approved, traceability information is stored in one of our databases, which we regularly update with our suppliers to ensure that what they have previously told us his still true today. Their ability to document their supply chain back to the fishing boats or farming sites used is randomly tested. We also have a DNA testing verification program to validate the species reported.

For all these reasons, our traceability program enables us to guarantee a supply of responsible products. The program helps us assess the sustainability of products and adopt transparent and complete labelling for the products offered in our stores, under our private labels and at our counters.

For Metro, offering complete traceability is a priority, even a point of pride, because that helps consumers make their own decisions based on their knowledge and personal values. It is generally viewed as a sign of transparency and inspires trust.

That completes my presentation. I will be pleased to provide further details and to answer your questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you. It's not often a witness will leave a little time on the clock, but we appreciate it.

We'll now proceed to our rounds of questions.

Before we begin, I want to welcome Monsieur Garon in place of Madame Desbiens, for some time today. Welcome to the committee.

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

I will remind members of the committee to identify to whom you're asking your question. It makes it a little easier, instead of having our witnesses stare at the camera and not know who is supposed to answer.

Mr. Perkins, please go ahead.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming here for this important study. I think we're learning a lot as a committee on the process so far, with a few surprises.

I was impressed by your presentation, Ms. Leclerc, particularly the five areas that you look at, which you covered. In those five areas, you keep track of that for every product, but it isn't necessarily reflected on the packaging. Is that correct?

[Alexandra Leclerc]

Actually, the traceability appears on the packaging of 90% to 95% of our products.

Yes, in some situations, we can't display the traceability on certain products for technical reasons. For example, in the balanced format used to print packaging, we use a field to display the ingredients we're legally required to show on the packaging. In some cases, it's hard to add the traceability because we simply lack the space.

In other situations, we have several different suppliers for a single product. It's harder to display the traceability if the provenance of those suppliers varies widely. For example, if we have a product that comes from Canada and the United States, the traceability displayed on the packaging might be “North America”. However, it's harder to find a general term to convey that information in the case of a product from the United States and China.

Most of the time, the traceability is displayed on all our private-label products and on those offered at our counters, including plastic-covered containers.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you. I think your process is clearly superior to what I've seen on some of the packaging and some of the traceability I've seen with your competitors. I went through some of those in an earlier committee meeting.

I checked some of the packages last night. It's not a scientific sample, but when I was in one of your stores here in Ottawa, there was a High Liner product called “wild caught Pacific salmon”. The ingredients listed it as smoked steelhead salmon. There's a discussion about whether you classify steelhead as a Pacific salmon. It usually isn't in the ingredients. On the front of the package it said there were no artificial preservatives, but if it's smoked, it has preservatives in it.

I don't mean to pick that one out in particular. There were a few others. A True North package of Atlantic salmon was not labelled as farmed salmon, which it naturally would be.

I'm just wondering if you could describe in your process how that comes.... You may trace that all the way through, and it's great that you do DNA sampling, but for the consumer, when it says it's a naturally smoked Atlantic salmon product of Canada, why doesn't it say it's farmed? In some of the cases, how do you come up with classifying steelhead as Pacific salmon?

[Alexandra Leclerc]

I would draw a distinction for national brand products, which belong to a specialized supplier. Consider the products of the High Liner, True North and Clover Leaf brands, for example. Those suppliers, which we call “national brand” product suppliers, are responsible for their own labels. In other words, Metro recommends that they include a complete traceability, but that's a decision they make within their own companies.

Metro displays a traceability on products over which the company has a certain amount of control, those packaged in store, for example, and private brand products such as Irresistibles and Selection, which belong to us.

For the examples you cite, Canadian legislation determines whether a traceability appears on wild or farmed products. A complete traceability is currently information that is voluntarily provided in Canada. What must appear on the product is its common name and the country of origin, which is simply the place of last processing. Companies are not required under law to provide other information.

I hope that answers your question.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I appreciate that. I think that's one of the areas we're looking at—it depends on where we go with the report—with regard to a little more consumer clarity on some of the packaging and labelling.

Madame Canet, you mentioned in your statement that you found issues of Costco selling lobster in out-of-season periods, promoting it as local lobster. Could you expand on that a little?

[Claire Canet]

As you see, I'm not working for the Magdalen Islands lobster fishermen. In 2017 Costco did a big promotion about two weeks before the Magdalen Islands lobster fishery opened. They were selling on site, in their shops, with big banners...“Magdalen Islands lobster”, etc., which clearly could not be possible given the boats had not gone out yet. They would go out in two weeks' time.

Really, it raises the issue that was pointed out also by Ms. Leclerc, of how some distributors or providers inform the end consumer.

In all honesty, it is extremely puzzling how we can end up with situations like that. Even if the legislation is not perfect to protect the end consumer, here we are. It is raising a question of the credibility and control of some supplies or distribution chains in the seafood industry.

The Magdalen Islands fishermen lodged a complaint against Costco to that effect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

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

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us today.

Ms. Canet, I'm going to go back to the question my colleague Mr. Perkins asked you.

You said that Costco promoted what it called Magdalen Islands lobster whereas, in fact, it didn't know where it was from. As far as you know, are there any statutes that prevent major grocery chains and supermarkets from doing that?

You say that fishermen filed a complaint or a lawsuit.

What does your research currently say about that?

[Claire Canet]

As noted earlier, the legislation doesn't guarantee truth in labelling. It's extremely complicated to follow what goes on in the value chain. Individual stakeholders are often isolated. In a case like Costco, it's very hard for the producer or end consumer to pursue a complaint.

Here's another example. Every year, we monitor consumers of Gaspé lobster and receive dozens of calls. One end consumer who had identified a Gaspé lobster contacted us directly because he had bought a tainted lobster at the fish shop of a major distributor. Since the image of the quality of Gaspé lobster was at stake, as was the image of our fisherman's work, we tried to go back up the value chain to see where the problem had originated. As a result, we went to the distributor of that major grocery chain and asked some questions. We asked them to provide the date when that lot had been delivered, the conditions in which it had been stored to ensure product quality, where the lobster had been purchased and the route on which it had been transported. We never received any answers.

Consumers obviously have no recourse because they're dealing with a huge machine and can't get answers to their questions.

So I don't think the set-up is right for that.

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

I see.

Thank you for providing a little more detail on the matter, which I thought was relevant.

Congratulations on the traceability of your products, particularly lobster, even though I'm your neighbour from across the bay. I'm thinking of the little tag that people can scan to see what boat the lobster comes from. Sometimes you can even see a short video of the fishermen catching it. It's all to your benefit to promote your local lobster that way.

I'm not blaming Metro or the other major grocery chains, but you said some of them removed the tags from the lobsters once they were put in the tank at the supermarket.

Why do you think they do that?

[Claire Canet]

The elastic bands are actually removed or replaced. The distribution chain's fish seller claims it's Gaspé lobster, but there's no tag to prove it. The elastic bands bear the stamp of the chain's distributor, which handles all the logistics involved in allocating lots among the various stores.

The changes are made by the distributor in the logistics chain. It's the two elastic bands that are replaced. If the tag has fallen off, you'll see only one elastic band. The problem is that these are isolated cases. Sometimes elastic bands are replaced on half of the lobsters in the tank because they're Gaspé lobsters. The problem's really at the distributor level.

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

Thank you, Ms. Canet.

Mrs. Leclerc, you said earlier that your supermarket chain applies five principles to ensure that consumers are completely satisfied with the products on your shelves.

Would you please give us some examples of products that you have withdrawn from your supermarkets or of suppliers with whom you've stopped doing business because they failed to follow guidelines?

As Mr. Perkins said earlier, the packaging often reads “Atlantic shrimp”, whereas the shrimp came from somewhere else and, in some instances, from farms.

Have you completely dropped any suppliers because they broke the rules?

What rules would they have broken among your five principles?

[Alexandra Leclerc]

First of all, I'm going to talk instead about species that we refuse to commercialize. Metro annually monitors certain sensitive stocks and vulnerable species. We have a list of temporarily withdrawn species, and we systematically refuse to accept any of those products that suppliers offer us. A few examples appear on the list that we've published on our website. They include certain tuna, shark and ray species.

As I said, we monitor the situation annually. I've been working in this specific field for four years, and I've seen significant improvement in stocks only once. It was the deepwater redfish, which we reauthorized for listing and sale.

As for suppliers, I don't have any specific examples for you because our job is really to evaluate products and species. We may reject certain products from a supplier because the traceability is incomplete or we doubt its veracity. We may also accept other products from that supplier for which it has demonstrated a complete procurement chain.

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

Do you do that evaluation on the ground or in the lab?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier. Your time has gone over. Somebody will get it in the next round of questioning.

We'll now go to Monsieur Garon for six minutes, s'il vous plaît.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to thank our two guests for being here with us today. I love seafood, particularly when it comes from Quebec. I'm sure that won't come as a surprise to you. I'm delighted reassured to see that companies are featuring our seafood products and tracing them effectively.

Ms. Canet, I was struck by the fact that you collaborated so closely with the MAPAQ. You said that Quebec and the provinces could play an important role in developing the traceability and enhancement of systems. I'd like you to give us some additional details about that.

In this process, what role does the federal government perform and what should the role of the provinces be?

[Claire Canet]

My understanding is that the provinces are responsible for everything related to processing and marketing. As that falls within their areas of jurisdiction and as traceability is an issue that affects the marketing of these products, I believe it is essential for the provinces to be playing a key role in implementing a traceability system.

In connection with the federal government's role, I would say that interprovincial trade requires harmonizing the systems. For the complete traceability of products within Canada, the federal government definitely has a role to play, including in developing the Blue Economy Strategy. It could establish the major legislative guidelines for data and consumer protection, and for the regulation of all stakeholders in the value chain. It could also develop a blueprint for the harmonization of systems across Canada.

That's how I see the role of the provinces and the federal government in this area.

I hope that answers your question.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Yes, it certainly does.

It's important to remember how dynamic the provinces are. Among other things, they have introduced things like geographical indications and various other systems.

Ms. Leclerc, you represent a large corporation. My understanding is that you introduced a traceability system in 2010. That was a huge task.

What major obstacles did you encounter through the chain?

Can you give us further details about small suppliers in market niches?

What are the problems they will likely encounter if they want to follow your lead in terms of traceability?

From the regulatory standpoint, how can the federal government give these companies a helping hand?

[Alexandra Leclerc]

Thank you for the question.

In my opening address, I mentioned two of the major challenges we face. The first is the matter of scientific names compared to common names. Many of our suppliers tend not to use the Latin scientific name. The use of common names can lead to confusion, because some can refer to as many as 40 species. Not only that, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's fish list is difficult to update. And the CFIA list doesn't always match the lists of other countries. This is an everyday challenge for us.

Similarly, one can talk about the geographical origin rather than country of origin; there's a lot of confusion between the two. That's something we struggle with every day.

You also mentioned small suppliers, for whom traceability would require more time and money than expected. They have farther to go. Documenting these things could be more difficult for them.

Generally speaking, the industry would benefit from the introduction of an awareness program on scientific names or the difference between geographical origin and country of origin. More support is needed in this area.

Another factor that presents challenges every day is the need to systematically document the supply chain from boat-to-plate. We are unable to do this with the systems we currently have. We test our suppliers randomly. For a given product, we asked them to go from boat-to-plate in the supply chain and require them to tell us what the stages are, from the boat to the port, from the port to the processor and from the distributor to our own warehouse.

That means a lot of verification work for us. For the supplier, it requires a lot of documentation effort. It needs to be done systematically for all orders, all products and all catches. The systems we have at the moment simply don't allow us to do that.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Then I can only imagine how much it would cost small suppliers.

You mentioned five major guiding principles. There is traceability, but there is also socioeconomic development. I'm thinking, for example, about the rule to use the last major processing operation for labelling. It seems to me that inappropriate rules are putting our local fishers and products at a disadvantage.

Do you believe that better labelling of products and improved rules could enable to our harvesters and small-scale fishers to compete more fairly against competition from abroad, for example?