Fisheries committee  Not offhand, but I can say that the fish supply chain is a complex one. The path that's taken in the supply chain, from the time it's caught to the time it lands on a consumer's plate, could go through many hands. It depends from where it originates, of course, but it is a very complex supply chain.

Fisheries committee  I believe questions with respect to catch and sustainability fall to my colleague.

Fisheries committee  There's been good collaboration between the three departments. During our investigative and consultation period we organized and participated collaboratively in various stakeholder meetings. Prior to the pandemic, we held a few rounds of face-to-face meetings. During the pandemic we have had joint meetings with various stakeholders.

Fisheries committee  As I mentioned earlier, we will be publishing a “what we heard” report in the spring of this year, whereby we'll be looking at and determining whether there was consensus from Canadians, consumers, industry and others with respect to the approach. There are various options available, both regulatory and non-regulatory, and while there was no real consensus from some of the early feedback that we got from Canadians, I think they are mainly concerned about making sure the fish and seafood they are eating is safe to eat.

Fisheries committee  You are correct. The Codex Alimentarius standard, which many countries follow—the EU, the United States and Canada included—with respect to country of origin and that declaration on a label, signifies where the food underwent the last substantial processing step. Now, as part of this inquiry into the country of origin, it's important, and I'd like to share that at the CFIA we have undertaken significant consultations over the last five years to modernize our food labelling requirements.

Fisheries committee  You are correct. Keeping a list of common names is a tool that many countries around the world use to help food processors and production companies ensure that they label the product accurately. In many instances, a scientific name can carry various common names. It is a challenge to continuously keep that information up to date, but that's why our partnerships with academia and with non-government organizations have been so important as of late, to make sure we are providing the best information to industry to keep their labels accurate.

Fisheries committee  Following the 2019 mandate commitment to the Minister of Health, the CFIA, along with Fisheries and Oceans and Agriculture and Agri-Food, began our engagement with stakeholders, with academia and with non-government organizations to get a better understanding of the issue. We spent a bit of time undergoing discussions to further our knowledge.

Fisheries committee  I don't believe that question falls within CFIA's mandate. I don't know whether my colleague from Fisheries and Oceans has a response to that.

Fisheries committee  We've really valued Oceana's and SeaChoice's studies. We've met with them several times over the past several years to further understand their research and look at their data. We have worked with them to update and change a lot of the guidance we have available to stakeholders to make sure they use the labelling guidance properly.

Fisheries committee  We took follow-up enforcement action on all of the non-compliances, and the actions we undertook ranged from letters of non-compliance to fines. There were other enforcement actions. All of those were followed up by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Fisheries committee  Mr. Chair, if you'll allow me, I can provide that information now . The unsatisfactory results that we discovered as part of this surveillance study revealed that around 12% were misrepresented in grocery stores. That included fish that was packaged at the fishmonger itself within the grocery store, followed by a 5% rate for imported products and a 4% rate by domestic processors.

Fisheries committee  I believe you're referring to the studies that were conducted by non-governmental organizations such as SeaChoice and Oceana. Is that correct? It's certainly understandable that there may be questions with respect to the differences in the amount of misrepresentation or non-compliance that's seen in both studies.

Fisheries committee  I believe you indicated how CFIA would label the product. It's up to the company responsible for producing or selling that product to make sure that—

Fisheries committee  Yes. Thank you for allowing me to elaborate on that particular study. That study was done as part of our fraud initiative to gather more intelligence with respect to the extent and scope of misrepresentation in Canada. We targeted specific species in this study. We looked at nine different species that we knew had a history of misrepresentation in the marketplace.

Fisheries committee  We targeted butterfish, cod, halibut, kingfish, sea bass, snapper—red and other, sole, tuna and yellowtail. As I said, these are known to have a higher likelihood of being misrepresented in the marketplace.