Fisheries committee  No. We have focused entirely on our labelling—on the international conventions and standards related to food labelling and food safety through Codex. To my knowledge, we haven't engaged at a formal level on how labels might be used to address potentially illegal and unrelated fis

Fisheries committee  I have no reason to doubt their data. I think it's probably quite true.

Fisheries committee  It does alarm me. Every case of food without a label corresponding with what it says it's supposed to be should alarm us. It's false and misleading, and I agree there are always food safety risks. We're finding that the challenge is where on the supply chain it is happening. The

Fisheries committee  You're right. That's the root and the biggest problem at issue here. Fish are easy to substitute because they look alike. It's hard to distinguish between them.

Fisheries committee  The actual person or entity that should be responsible is the company that broke the law and tried to do whatever it could to dupe it. In terms of catching it, without question, we have to continue to look at how we enforce it. Restaurants are particularly difficult because they

Fisheries committee  Yes, one of the things we're really pushing for, and the new regulations have allowed us to do, is lot codes, because lot codes at least help us start to trace that back and be able to find the root cause of everything. Again, it's driven by food safety, but it works for food fra

Fisheries committee  We've have had them in place for only about four months now, but yes, I do think that the ability.... It's the first time that we have put the obligation completely on the importer or the processor to be responsible for meeting the regulations, and we have said that their licence

Fisheries committee  We routinely do look at.... We have done some testing ourselves, and even with Dr. Hanner, whom they mentioned, in 2018, similarly looking at the DNA elements. With those we looked more at imported product and our processors. The rates of seafood misrepresentation were much lower

Fisheries committee  I don't have specific data but seafood comes in all forms. Some of it comes in a form to be processed here. A great deal happens that way. We also allow fish into Canada fish has already been processed.

Fisheries committee  I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, I'm a food safety expert, not an economist. I really can't speculate on that.

Fisheries committee  If you'll permit me, Mr. Chairman, I can respond from a food safety perspective. For the food to come into Canada, it has to comply with Canadian food safety requirements.

Fisheries committee  No, but we test 18,000 samples per year for pathogens. We test 500 to 700 samples for veterinary drug residues, approximately 500 for metals and 100 for samples of pesticides. Then we look at other elements, contaminants such as PCBs, dioxins, for instance—and granted, not every

Fisheries committee  Off the top of my head, no, I don't have any evidence of food coming into Canada that's clearly substandard. If we did, it would be investigated and either held, turned back or destroyed. That's what we do.

Fisheries committee  Yes, we do keep records for mislabelling of products. As I said, our data isn't showing a significant impact at the importer level, which I think goes to the nature of your question. It's something we're looking into, as I said, more strongly now that we're taking a more focused

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much. Good day. As mentioned, my name is Lyzette Lamondin. I want to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak about seafood labelling. More specifically, I appreciate being able to explain how labelling fits into the mandate of the Canadian Fo