Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting my testimony today. My name is Sonia Strobel. I bring a few different perspectives to this study and to the impacts of foreign ownership and corporate concentration of fishing licences and quotas, and I'll try to fo

Fisheries committee  Again, this is what Ms. Burridge has been addressing as well. We have these rules in place. We have these mechanisms in place in our domestic processing system to trace seafood. There is such a diminished processing capacity in British Columbia for a variety of reasons and we n

Fisheries committee  I think Ms. Burridge answers that quite well. It's such a good example that we have these mechanisms in place in Canada to trace seafood so that it can meet the more stringent demands of the EU market, so there's clearly a breakdown between what's being harvested and processed in

Fisheries committee  I'll echo what Ms. Burridge just said. I think there's a lot of great work being done here, and I think there's an opportunity to support the people who are doing the hard work and really carrying the burden of that work for the industry. To recognize their work and to see govern

Fisheries committee  I would say from my experience that the deterrents are definitely not strong enough. I've heard both from folks selling seafood and from conservation and protection officers that the deterrents are not strong enough. I've heard folks from both sides say that. We've had inspect

Fisheries committee  I think one of the most important benefits to harvesters is to know in advance of the season that you have pre-sold your catch. It takes out the uncertainty of where and what the best market will be for your catch. Without the Skipper Otto model, so much uncertainty falls to fish

Fisheries committee  Can I add to that? Ms. Burridge and Mr. Lansbergen have pointed out that the problem isn't so much that we don't know this information about Canadian-processed seafood but that we're not demanding that the information come to the end consumer. Therefore, we are leaving it up to

Fisheries committee  Yes, I absolutely think so. I think the number given this morning, $94 million in lost tax revenue, was due to our not capturing that. It seems very clear to me that there's an easy way to be funding some of this.

Fisheries committee  I think it's a bit of both, isn't it? We have seen an enormous growth in demand for the product that we have. Skipper Otto grew 50% last year. It grew 100% the year before. The demand for this kind of product is very great, and it's growing. I think you're right that a certain p

Fisheries committee  I think this is a wonderful idea. Absolutely we need to start with listening. I've spoken many times before, even here with the committee, about active listening and about starting by listening. There's so much innovation in Canada and so much creative thinking that when we put t

Fisheries committee  I think that it's fairly well managed through bycatch quotas. When I referenced “rockfish”, that's one of the areas where we see that happening a lot. Some rockfish are abundant and very sustainable and some are not. In fact, some are endangered. The quotas attempt to manage t

Fisheries committee  I'll briefly reinforce what Ms. Burridge said. From our perspective, what we see as the largest problem is imported seafood being incorrectly labelled in the marketplace, along with the difficulties for Canadian harvesters and Canadian small businesses to compete with that, and

Fisheries committee  I don't have a lot of expertise in that area, so I'll keep it brief in the interests of time. I will just add that I think that enforcement is such a key piece of this. I know that there are things that are working well in the EU, but they only work well when they're enforced wit

Fisheries committee  Good morning. Thank you for having me here to discuss this important topic of seafood traceability and labelling in Canada. My name is Sonia Strobel. I am the co-founder and CEO of Skipper Otto Community Supported Fishery, based here on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Watuth l

Fisheries committee  Thank you so much for having us.