Fisheries committee  Our focus is not entirely on China. Right before that last investigation, we looked at the Thai fleet; before that, it was the Taiwanese fleet, and before that was the South Korean fleet. We've just recently been turning to China. To answer your question, I think the largest big players that are IUU-connected are the largest big players.

Fisheries committee  The 200 to 300 vessels that you're referring to are largely squid jiggers. They go every year, and have been for a decade, to those high seas waters near the Galapagos. We actually boarded those vessels and inspected their conditions, their supply chain, etc. We traced many of those vessels back to the Canadian market, the U.S. market and others.

Fisheries committee  The seafood is cheaper.

Fisheries committee  Yes, for consumers.... Why are all industries, such as textiles, etc., in China? It's because it's cheaper.

Fisheries committee  It depends on the species and the location, to be honest. There are RFMOs in specific places that pertain to tuna, for example. Squid has very few. There is one RFMO in South America that pertains to squid, but it doesn't encompass the region you're discussing. For the most part, the answer is no.

Fisheries committee  It would take a bunch of things. It would take western brands in Canada, the U.S. and Europe to apply pressure on their own companies and foreign companies that are tied.... It would take governments to set aside MPAs on high seas and have mechanisms to do that, such as the High Seas Treaty on biodiversity.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for the kind words. No, I have not.

Fisheries committee  Sure. I've written extensively about it. It's High Liner Foods, and it's one of the main importers of large amounts of seafood into Canada.

Fisheries committee  I can speak only of my suspicion that it's an unwitting error. I think the extent to which it's witting is that, when these companies and many others decide to go into China, they opt to play by the rules that exist there. Everyone knows what those rules are, and one of them is that there are fundamental prohibitions against core things that you would need to check your supply chain for.

Fisheries committee  Thank you. My name is Ian Urbina. I'm the director of The Outlaw Ocean Project. We're a journalism organization based in Washington D.C. I spent two decades at The New York Times, on the investigative unit. The last big investigation I conducted there looked at human rights and environmental crimes on the watery two-thirds of the planet.