Oceana Is Back with Another Report On Canada’s Fish Fraud Scandal

“Think you know the whole story about your seafood? Think again.”

These provocative words open Oceana Canada’s new campaign video, posted on YouTube on the heels of their most recent investigative study of Canada’s fish fraud dilemma. The video, which is part public-service-announcement and part call-to-action, exposes the Canadian government’s broken promises to remedy the nation’s on-going fish fraud issue and calls on members of the public to join the effort to demand government action.

Fish fraud is not a new concern. Oceana Canada has been tracking this issue nation-wide since 2017. In their 2017-18 study, researchers found that 44 per cent of the 400 samples of fish tested across five major Canadian cities were mislabeled. A year later, they conducted a Montreal-specific study which showed that a whopping 61 per cent of fish samples were either a substituted species or didn’t meet the labelling requirements set by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Oceana’s most recent report, published this month, covers their research from earlier this year across four major Canadian cities – Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax. Researchers tested 94 seafood samples from grocery stores and restaurants to find 46 per cent were mislabelled – a finding consistent with their 2018 report.

So why has the Canadian government been sluggish in dealing with this problem?

Governments are notoriously not the swiftest actors. Add in a pandemic, and they’re likely working at glacial speed. But there’s another factor at play: CFIA conducted their own study on fish fraud between 2019 and 2020. They surveyed 362 samples of fish across Canada and revealed a 92 per cent accuracy rate in labeling of all fish varieties sampled.

The discrepancy between CFIA’s 8 per cent margin of error and Oceana’s 44 to 46 per cent is not a small margin, particularly considering the studies were done within two years of each other.

In fact, the discrepancy demands scrutiny. A closer examination of the research design of each study offers insight. One theory might be that each study sampled different varieties of fish which yielded widely divergent results. But this is not the case. The CFIA studied nine types of fish: butterfish, cod, halibut, sea bass, snapper (red and other), sole, tuna, yellowtail, and kingfish. The Oceana study also sampled nine varieties: butterfish, cod, halibut, sea bass, snapper, sole, tuna, yellowtail and salmon. In other words, all fish varieties matched between the two studies with the exception of CFIA choosing kingfish, while Oceana chose salmon instead. And while we might wonder if the prevalence of salmon in market consumption might explain the skewed results, it doesn’t. Salmon ranked least likely to be mislabeled in the Oceana study with a mislabeling rate of 18 per cent.

If a difference in fish varieties sampled doesn’t explain the discrepancy in each study’s results, what does?

Here’s one theory. The CFIA inspectors collected fish samples from domestic processors, importers and retailers (fish packaged at retail). Restaurants were excluded as a source of fish samples. This omission is significant because the Oceana study revealed that restaurants were one of the biggest offenders when it comes to mislabeling – more than half of the restaurant samples tested were mislabeled. By removing restaurants from the list of sources, the CFIA report might be falsely reassuring.

Conversely, according to Oceana, at food retailers, including grocery stores and markets, the rate of mislabeling was 22 per cent. While not effectively aligning with the CFIA results, the lower rate of mislabeling at retailers in the Oceana study does bring us closer than at first glance to a comparable result between the two agency’s studies, if we remove restaurants from the equation.

Anyone familiar with food writer Laura Reiley’s investigative report of food fraud, including fish fraud, in the Tampa Bay area will understand the significance of omitting restaurants from any study purporting to detect food fraud. Reiley states from the outset of her article: “I’ve been had, from the snapper down to the beef.”

Her stellar journalism backs up that statement. She rightly identifies the allure of the promises of “buying local” or “sustainable sourcing” in the marketing of restaurants. And she put to task the all-too-frequent claims made by restaurants in the Tampa area. Most fell short of their claims. The problem she expertly identifies is: “Buying local” and “sustainable sourcing” are too often convenient fictions, used by restauranteurs hoping to increase their customer base – and bottom line.

Taking a cue from Reiley’s reporting, as well as Oceana’s multi-year studies, it seems crucial to include restaurants in any study on fish fraud in order to capture accurately the big picture.

And why should we care so much about fish fraud? For a few reasons. Fish fraud affects your pocketbook, your health, and the public’s trust in our food systems and the regulations therein. Ordering grouper and getting tilapia creates a price differential. Tilapia is a cheaper fish. Ordering wild-caught fish and getting farmed presents a potential health challenge you didn’t bargain for. Oceana points out another consequence of poor traceability in their most recent report: Canada’s contribution to and losses from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing around the world. Their report found that Canada is losing millions of dollars each year because of “opaque seafood supply chains.”

But perhaps most importantly, proper labeling and an absence of misrepresentation in food products goes a long way in building the public’s trust. If the Government of Canada wants to ensure the public’s trust in its food regulatory provisions, including the tracing of food origins, quality and safety, the presence of misrepresentation of products such as fish undermines that trust.

According to market research conducted by Abacus Data for Oceana Canada earlier this year, 87 per cent of Canadians are concerned about purchasing seafood that is mislabeled, up 11 points from 76 per cent in December 2020. Moreover, 86 per cent are concerned about the Government’s lack of action in addressing seafood mislabeling and illegal fishing in Canada.

So what is the Government doing about all this?

In 2019, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau issued a mandate letter to the health minister to develop a boat-to-plate traceability program. This mandate has turned into a multi-department initiative, with the CFIA identified as the lead, working with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AAFC), and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).

According to a CFIA spokesperson, CFIA, DFO, and AAFC have “actively engaged with a broad range of stakeholders, such as industry and industry associations, non-government organizations, academia, and Federal and provincial partners, to gather perspectives on measures to fulfill the mandate commitment.” A joint discussion paper, on behalf of all three organizations, is supposed to be published this Summer. For Oceana, this is seemingly not soon enough. And summer is winding down.

When asked if “industry stakeholders” include restauranteurs, CFIA offered this: “Industry stakeholders include all players in the seafood supply chain and, as such, the restaurant industry.”

This inclusion bodes well in terms of filling in the gaps between the Oceana and CFIA studies. Stakeholders and consumers alike eagerly await the results and recommendations of this initiative. Whether or not this discussion paper will call out the need to focus the lens more tightly on restaurant compliance with product labeling, however, remains to be seen. One thing is for certain: if it does not, or if these government agencies continue to drag their feet on implementing a robust boat-to-plate traceability program, Oceana Canada will be knocking loudly at their doors – along with the 87 per cent of concerned Canadians.

This article was originally published in August 2021.