Mr. Speaker, while there are no directed shark fisheries in Canada, under the new measures announced by the government late last year, harvesters that retain bycatches of sharks will be required to land any pelagic sharks with all fins at least partially attached to the carcass as a measure to strengthen shark finning prevention.
Most fisheries in Canada are already meeting the requirement to keep fins at least partially attached to the carcass until after landing. Consultations on full implementation of this measure are ongoing with the one remaining fleet that has not yet fully implemented the fins-attached requirement. This measure will be fully implemented for all fisheries no later than March 2018.
While there are currently no regulations being considered to limit the trade of fins to countries that have implemented a fins-attached approach, Canada restricts or bans the trade, possession, or sale of shark products from species that are protected under either the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, CITES, or the Species At Risk Act, or those that would present human health or food safety concerns. As a member of the CITES, Canada aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten a species’ long-term survival. The porbeagle shark, the oceanic whitetip shark, the hammerhead, the great white shark, the whale shark and the basking shark are all listed on appendix II of the Convention. Countries exporting any of these species must prove the sustainability of their country’s harvest and issue export permits for international trade. Canada takes seriously its legal obligation to prevent the import of products from these shark species.
In fisheries where harvesters are permitted to retain skates or rays, de-winging is permitted as a form of processing at sea and a conversion factor is applied to the weight of the wings landed to ensure that the overall established total allowable catch for the stock in question is not exceeded. In most of these fisheries there is 100% dockside monitoring, and in some cases there is 100% observer coverage. As de-winging and accounting for the harvests of skates and rays is not currently a conservation issue, there are no plans to implement any measures to prohibit the removal of skate and ray wings at sea.