THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, January 30, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, to which was referred Bill S-238, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (importation of shark fins), met this day at 5 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening, everybody. My name is Fabian Manning. I’m a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador and I’m pleased to chair this evening’s meeting. Before I give the floor to our witnesses, I would like to invite the members of the committee that are here now to introduce themselves, starting on my immediate right.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario.
Senator Hartling: Nancy Hartling from New Brunswick.
Senator McInnis: Tom McInnis from Nova Scotia.
Senator Christmas: Dan Christmas, Nova Scotia.
Senator Gold: Marc Gold from Quebec.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. We may have some other senators who will be joining us shortly as they finish up their work in the chamber.
The committee is continuing its study on Bill S-238, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (importation of shark fins).
Today, we have two panels. Our first panel consists of Kristyn Wong-Tam, City Councillor, Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, Toronto City Council. And we have Joanna Hui appearing with us by video conference.
On behalf of the committee, I thank both of you for being here today. I understand that each of you has opening remarks so I will ask you to present those now starting with Ms. Wong-Tam. Then we will go to our senators for questions. The floor is yours.
Kristyn Wong-Tam, City Councillor, Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale, Toronto City Council: Thank you very much, and good day, senators. I’m appearing before you largely on a very important matter. My name is Kristyn Wong-Tam and I’m a Toronto city councillor. I’m also Chair of the Toronto and East York Community Council.
Prior to my election at city council, I served six years as the past president of the Toronto chapter of the Chinese Canadian National Council, also known as the CCNC. It is a national, non-profit organization with 27 chapters across Canada, and we are a community leader of Chinese Canadians. We promote a more just, more respectful and more inclusive society.
Today, I have travelled from Toronto to express my personal support for Bill S-238, short-titled the ban on shark fin importation act.
As you likely know, shark finning is the cruel act of capturing an entire shark to remove only the fins by cutting them off with a blade and tossing the shark body, literally while still alive, back into the water. The finless shark, unable to swim, falls to the bottom of the ocean while in agonizing pain, where it will die in a matter of days, often by suffocation, by drowning or by being killed by other ocean life.
Although shark finning in domestic waters was outlawed in Canada in 1994, this cruel, wasteful and unsustainable practice is still widespread and the importation of shark fins obtained in such a manner is, surprisingly, not illegal. This leaves a massive legal loophole that is eagerly exploited by those who profit immensely from the legal sale and trade of shark fins and derivative products, often obtained illegally through uncontrolled shark finning.
Other than shark fin being the main ingredient in shark fin soup — served at upscale Chinese restaurants and formal banquet dinners to show respect to guests and to allow the hosts to demonstrate their personal wealth and affluence — there are no other legitimate uses for this product — not medicinal, not scientific and not educational.
In June 2011, I proudly introduced a member motion with my colleague, councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, to ban the possession, sale and consumption of shark fin and derivative products within the city limits of Toronto. This motion was presented to Toronto City Council along with a petition signed by 10,000 residents who supported the creation of this municipal ban.
Knowing that Toronto has one of the largest Chinese-Canadian populations in Canada, by eliminating the consumer demand for shark fin soup, we believe that such a ban would in effect help eliminate the inhumane and irresponsible practice of shark finning, which results in the slaughter of an estimated 100 million sharks per year.
Our member motion was successfully adopted by Toronto City Council by a vote of 38-4 and the new bylaw was enacted on September 1, 2012.
Almost immediately after the motion was passed by city council, certain opponents to the shark fin ban, representing their own business interests and not the entire Chinese community, filed a human rights complaint against the City of Toronto for enacting a ban that discriminated against their ethnicity or race. Their issue was quickly dismissed by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal as their main complaint was about profit rights and not human rights.
In summary, there were zero grounds for a human rights complaint, as the entire Chinese community was not discriminated against by this bylaw. As a case in point, not every Chinese person eats shark fin. I do not, and neither does my family. I did not serve shark fin soup at my wedding, neither did my two siblings when they got married.
Following the dismissal of the human rights complaint, four members of the local Chinese-Canadian community filed an appeal to have the ban overturned, claiming that the bylaw was outside the jurisdiction of the municipal government.
In December 2012, Justice James Spence of the Ontario Superior Court struck down our Toronto bylaw, citing it being highly intrusive and outside the powers of the city, affecting the consumption of city inhabitants in the privacy of their residences of food products which may not have been made illegal by federal government or other government actions. In essence, the Ontario Superior Court Justice suggested that the City of Toronto had overreached in the writing of its bylaw.
Senators, the relationship between national and subnational governments, and municipalities in particular, is one that requires us to work together. Protecting the oceans to ensure that the entire marine ecosystem is preserved is a responsibility that we all share, not only as lawmakers, but as inhabitants of this planet.
Bill S-238 represents the third time a federal private members’ bill has been introduced since 2013 to ban shark fin products in Canada. Clearly, this matter is not going away anytime soon — at least not until a national ban is solidly in place.
Without a national ban, provincial politicians such as British Columbia Green Party MLA Sonia Fursteneau are stepping forward to introduce a bill to prohibit the sale, distribution and possession of shark fins in that province. This follows the lead of 17 Canadian municipalities that have successfully banned the sale of shark fin products within their city limits.
Toronto City Council adopted a motion in April 2017 calling on the federal government to pass Bill S-238. Montreal City Council last week passed a similar motion supporting Bill S-238, again asking Ottawa to bring in a national shark fin ban.
Should Bill S-238 fail to pass in Ottawa, my council colleagues and I are prepared to take this matter back to Toronto City Council and carefully reintroduce a new motion to ban shark fin in the city. We have received independent legal advice and are confident that with a reduced scope, a new bylaw can be successfully introduced in Toronto to withstand any additional legal contests.
Although a revised Toronto bylaw remains an option, it is my preference and the preference of my council colleagues for Ottawa to demonstrate leadership on this important issue.
Given the multitude of local issues facing municipalities and the inefficiency of introducing local shark fin bans in a patchwork pattern of one city at a time, I believe it’s long overdue for this matter to be properly addressed by creating a federally initiated and sanctioned Canada-wide ban.
In an Environics poll, 81 per cent of Canadians supported a ban on the trade of products of shark finning. Municipal governments and Canadians from coast-to-coast are looking to Ottawa to take action and leadership on this issue and bring in a national shark fin ban once and for all. There is simply no political or environmental downside in implementing a national shark fin ban.
Senators, it is time to act. Please do not let us down. I respectfully conclude my comments here and I thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Wong-Tam. Now we will go to Ms. Hui.
Joanna Hui, Shark Advocate, as an individual: Hello, good afternoon and thank you for having me. My name is Joanna Hui. I’m speaking today as an individual.
I was born in Hong Kong and I grew up eating shark fin soup. Shark fin has no taste. It is the chicken broth and the other ingredients that make the soup flavourful.
When I saw the documentary Sharkwater, I was shocked. I had no idea that this little bowl of soup was causing so much devastation to our oceans. I stopped eating shark fin soup right away and I became a shark advocate. I ended up working at city hall and had the opportunity to champion the shark movement within city hall alongside Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam.
During the Toronto campaign, I spoke with thousands of people, a lot of them from the Chinese community. We received overwhelming support.
For the deputation, dozens of speakers came in and a lot of them were Chinese. One even flew in from San Francisco. On the day of the council vote, the council chamber was packed with supporters. It was standing room only. Toronto council passed the ban 38-4.
Today, I am here to assure you that a federal shark fin import ban is the best thing that Canada can do for sharks and that it is absolutely not an affront to the Chinese community.
I know this because the shark movement is being championed by Chinese leaders around the world.
For example, the Hawaii shark fin ban was led by Senator Clayton Hee. The California ban was led by Senator Paul Fong, and here in Canada, the Toronto ban was led by Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam. And the Vancouver regional ban was led by Councillor Kerry Jang.
Chinese celebrities are also huge advocates. NBA superstar Yao Ming made a very popular PSA that was shown all across China where he pushes away a bowl of soup and says when the buying stops, the killing can too.
Hollywood star Jackie Chan and renowned director Ang Lee are also huge supporters. Following the Toronto ban, the shark movement spread quickly in Asia. Five-star hotels in China and Hong Kong, including the Peninsula, Shangri-La and Fairmont banned shark fin soup in their restaurants. The top supermarket chain in Singapore, Carrefour, banned shark fins from their stores. And the largest carrier of air cargo, Cathay Pacific, stopped shipping unsustainable shark products. Even the Chinese government announced that it would phase out shark fin soup from their state banquets.
When such prominent leaders speak up, it shows that the shark movement is very much supported and championed by the Chinese community. I’d like to conclude my opening remarks with the personal story. I had my wedding in 2010 and back then, it was still expected to see shark fin soup on the menu. My caterer tried to shame me into it, saying we will look cheap otherwise, but I put my foot down and instead of criticizing us, our guests applauded us for our decision.
Seven years later, last spring, I went to my friend’s wedding, and when I sat down it was a table full of Chinese guests. I asked them, “So are they serving shark fin soup?” They looked at me like it was such a silly question. “Of course they are not serving shark fin soup,” one said. “Why would they be serving shark fin soup,” said another. So, attitude has changed significantly in seven years.
No one can insist that shark fin soup is a part of Chinese tradition anymore. The time is now for the federal government to do what is needed, to bring in a federal shark fin import ban so that we can save our oceans and our future. Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Hui.
We have had a couple of senators join us since we began. I will ask them to introduce themselves for the record.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald from Nova Scotia.
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine from B.C.
Senator Greene: Stephen Greene from Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Thank you to our witnesses for their presentations. We go to Senator Gold, our deputy chair, for the first question.
Senator Gold: Welcome and thank you for being here today.
Ms. Wong-Tam, I believe in a press release that you posted on your website, you noted that there has been an increase in shark fin imports into Canada while at the same time both the trade in China has decreased and, as both of you have indicated, cultural mores are changing. Can you help us understand, if the demand in Canada within the Chinese community seems to be waning, why we still see an increase in the importation of shark fins?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Senator, thank you very much for the question. I do not believe I can answer that definitively. All I know is that according to the Statistics Canada records, importation of shark fin products is up. I don’t know if that is the case across the community. I certainly do agree with Joanna’s comments. My observation — and observations anecdotally — is that the next generation has a very different attitude than the previous generation.
I would say that people are making conscious decisions to do things differently. I can’t tell you the difference in terms of where the shark fins are being consumed or if they recognize that perhaps it’s being hoarded; I don’t know. But I just know that from the Toronto area, most younger people who are getting married are choosing not to serve shark fin.
I can also add that there are members of my family that are fairly affluent, and generally I would have seen shark fin soup served at formal functions. They are also making — this is an older generation of affluence — decisions not to serve it anymore, based on the fact that the children don’t want to eat it.
Senator Gold: Thank you.
Ms. Hui, do you have anything to add?
Ms. Hui: I think a lot of the increase in sales you see might actually come from the supply end, not the demand end. I feel that restaurants continue to push it on to the consumers and while a big group of us are like myself and Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, who are very active and very adamant that we will never eat this, there is also a group of very passive supporters who believe it’s a right thing to do; but, if it is offered in a combo at a restaurant for a good price, then they may say, “Yes, okay.” But this is also the group that will not be offended if it’s taken away from the menu from them.
So I see a group of indifferent consumers, if you will, continuing to consume this, and that is why you may not have necessarily seen a drop in sales, even though the attitude has definitely changed.
Senator McInnis: Thank you very much for your efforts in the past and now for doing away with this horrific situation. If we haven’t become familiar with it, we are becoming very familiar with the travesty here because we hear that for shark fins alone, I think I read that 63 million are slaughtered annually, which is terrible. I presume that this is an industry in many countries where people go out and it’s a livelihood, as sad as that is.
To your knowledge, has there been any effort to bring about a sustainable industry whereby the signatories to CITES might want to come together and realistically look at if this is going to happen, there would be quotas and it would be done in a humane fashion? To your knowledge has anything like that happened?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Senator, thank you. I suspect that there will be witnesses after me who may have more of this technical knowledge. I think that the commonplace understanding within the sector, the industry and the advocacy groups is that there are really about 100 million sharks slaughtered every year. There are very few other commercial purposes for the shark beyond the value of the fins.
I would say that recognizing how difficult it is when a price so high has been placed on one particular aspect of an animal, it becomes an unsustainable practice in any which way that you take a look at it.
It wasn’t too long ago that the ivory market was quite prevalent and we still see many countries that have banned ivory and the importation of ivory, and they are doing everything they can to stop the illegal poaching of elephants for that ivory tusk. But there is still this market. Where there is profit and there is demand there will always be the market. So I’m not sure if there is a sustainable way of actually farming sharks, to be quite honest, where you can still have the shark fins put out to market at that high level commodity and then still make some use of the rest of the shark.
I think it would be almost impossible to try to get everyone on board internationally to find a sustainable way to farm sharks only for their fins or for the meat products, which is why I keep coming back to the bans on other precious commodities in the past, such as the tusk, simply because you have to be so regimented. There is no in-between because valuation is so absurd and the swing of the market is so difficult to measure.
So I think it’s got to be that we have to ban this particular product, and if we don’t, then we don’t have much to stand on. The oceans will not survive. The way the marine practices are taking place is that there is not going to be a lot left for the rest of us. If you lose the oceans, you lose the planet. To me, that’s what is at stake.
Senator McInnis: Do you have any comment?
Ms. Hui: Like the councillor said, I think the next panel is full of experts, so they can certainly tell you more. But, to my understanding, sharks are not really farmable in the sense that, say, salmon is farmable because they need a lot of room to swim around in, and they also mature very slowly. I think 25 years. So it is probably not economically viable to farm sharks. Now, I do not believe there are any sustainable shark fisheries out there.
Senator McInnis: I mentioned this to Senator MacDonald, who is the promoter of this bill. Make no mistake about it; I’m very much in favour of this bill, but I’m wondering if we shouldn’t, as well, be freezing out the importing of the product, period, whether it’s in a frozen form — I have no idea — or whether it’s in soup that is imported. Have you thought about that at all?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Senator, I think, if I can stay on the issue before us, I’m not an expert on the matter. What I can say is that when it comes to the wasteful practice of pulling out a shark from the water and taking only the fins — pectoral, dorsal — and throwing the rest of it back in, the price differentiation between the meat and the fins is so wild. I think you’re looking at a retail value of 1 kilogram of dried shark fin being worth approximately $805 to $1,075 Canadian. There is really nothing else out there that we consume at that price. So I don’t think that it would be possible to be able to suggest that we can. Yes, you could ban the meat. You can ban the entire shark. You can ban it all. But the bill before us right now is simply looking at the banning of the importation. I certainly do appreciate wanting to go that distance.
I would imagine that you can speak to a number of experts within the Fisheries Department who can give you some solid advice. I don’t think anything that we will say today is going to be that refutable, to be quite honest, if we focus the conversation on the importation ban of shark fins. Because that seems to be where the market is driving this unsustainable practice, to the point that people risk losing their boats. They risk jail time. They risk very punitive fines, but they’ll still do it because it’s so highly profitable.
So Canada is the largest importer of shark fins outside of Southeast Asia. That tells you there is something very significant happening here. I think we could actually demonstrate to the world, quite honestly, that this is a principled position. I think it speaks to Canadian values, and I think it would actually go a long way for municipalities that are trying to do the right thing, but we’re going to be doing it patchwork. We have 400-plus municipalities in the province of Ontario, and if all 400 of them had to pass their own local shark fin ban, you can tell it’s going to take some time. But it also means that you can just cross the street to go to another city, and you would be able to consume it. So we really do need a national ban. That’s what I’m hoping that you can help us with today.
Senator McInnis: Certainly that is what we will be doing, but in reality we really need this globally. After reading and doing some research on this, I see that this is a very serious, cruel industry. Anyway, thank you.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you very much, councillor, for being here today. I just want to make a statement, comment perhaps, and then a question.
I want to thank you for your determined efforts on this over the years, and you as well, Ms. Hui. I want to thank you very much for doing this. It has helped to open my eyes to it. Many hands make light work when it comes to these things. Education and knowledge are so important in this stuff. I think there is a large difference today as opposed to seven or eight years ago, the level of people’s education and knowledge of this. So I want to thank you as well for that.
I also think it’s important that we have members of the Canadian Chinese community to take a lead in this. Some people are mistakenly under the assumption that this is some attack on culture. The Chinese are probably the world’s greatest culinary experts. I know that the inability to serve this isn’t going to alter too much their ability to provide great food. They have been doing it for centuries.
The question I want to get to is this. When this bill came up in 2013, it was defeated in the house. I was a little surprised. I was disappointed. It hadn’t gotten to the Senate. I said, “When they get the opportunity again, perhaps they will do something with it.” That’s what we’re trying to do.
Am I right to assume — and I think I am from your remarks — that there is a much broader consensus today in the Canadian Chinese community than perhaps existed six or seven years ago? That this is an idea whose time has come?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Yes, senator. You are correct to assume that the attitudes are shifting. I would say that they are shifting in some places faster than others largely because of conversation and largely because of education. I rarely meet any young Chinese Canadians who think this is a good idea, that ask their parents, when they go out for dinner, “Can you please make sure you order shark fin soup?” It just does not happen. If anything, they push the bowls away. I have seen this at dinner tables, not even my dinner table but the dinner tables right next door.
I do think it has a lot to do with attitude shifts. Of course, parents who may have grown up with a different type of culinary assumptions, are also learning that it’s not sustainable. My father was a chef. He no longer eats shark fin. My uncle in Hong Kong is one of the top chefs on the island. He is taking a principled position, at a very high-end restaurant, that perhaps we give you a discount if you don’t order shark fin for your wedding or for your banquet functions. So, definitely, the attitude is dramatically shifting.
Senator MacDonald: I want to add that the greatest attribute you can have in politics is perseverance because sometimes you have to come back to something over and over again. I am glad you have persevered. I’m prepared to persevere. I think there is broad support for this. If we continue to persevere, I think we can. We’re not going to solve a problem here; it’s not going to solve the entire problem. But it is a step in the right direction and a very important first step. So thank you both for being here.
Ms. Wong-Tam: Thank you.
Senator Christmas: Assuming that this bill is passed and enacted by Parliament, my concern is that a black market for shark fin soup may then emerge. Yes, then it would be illegal. People could be charged and fined. I appreciate what you had mentioned that a lot of young people now push away the soup, and it seems to me that the long-term solution is to help our young people to recognize that eating this soup is not good for the species and it's not good for our oceans.
I was very curious that you mentioned that over a generation that has changed. It seems to me that that’s the solution. How do we change people’s minds and hearts and their eating habits to do away with consuming shark fin soup? What have you seen that has changed from generation to generation? Have there been certain educational tools?
I know the video has a dramatic impact. Why have young people taken the attitude they don’t want shark fin soup in Canada? Why has that happened?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Thank you, senator. I don’t believe it’s only Chinese Canadian youth or young people that are rejecting shark fin soup. I actually think it’s much bigger. There’s a worldwide global trend of younger Chinese folks from the diaspora who are making the same decisions that, once they know how this practice takes place, they can’t un-know.
Certainly our iconic Canadian hero, Rob Stewart, was pivotal in making sure that that information is out there. He started a global conversation in many ways that is continuing here today, largely because of his work and advocacy. We would do very well to honour him, especially since his passing, by making sure that the third time around we get this across the floor.
It has a lot to do with education. I do agree with you, and just as Senator McInnis was alluding to, you have to do something globally and we have to do it as a global community.
I understand we’re hosting the G8 summit, and one of the themes is going to be around oceans. What a spectacular way to kick off that summit by our government announcing that we’re going to lead the planet, of all the global communities, in making sure that Canada is going to ban shark fin importation and the trade of shark fin products. Hopefully, at that particular point when we have the whole world watching us, we set a good message and inspire other countries to do the work. That would be a fantastic Canadian legacy that builds on the legacy of people who have been doing the work.
I have not been doing the work the way the Stewart family or the Humane Society has been doing this work. There are so many advocates who have been doing this work for such a long time. I would say I’m a latecomer, and it’s certainly not my subject matter expertise, as you can tell by my little clumsy answers. But I feel very strongly that this is the right thing to do, and I believe it really does represent the best of Canada should we do this.
Senator Christmas: What I would suggest is perhaps a two-step approach. Yes, let’s have legislation in place. I fully agree with that. I support the legislation. I agree with that.
The second step, I think, has to be education. We’ve been fortunate so far to have private individuals and organizations willing to do a lot of the education on banning shark fin soup.
Should Canada, once this bill is passed, also introduce a program to teach Canadians and maybe the global citizenry? Should there be a program to help others understand why this ban is necessary?
Ms. Wong-Tam: I suspect the Stewart family will be able to answer this better than I can. Yes, there should be formal education programs. The education programs we have at universities should be enhanced to make sure that we do better at marine ecological sustainability and ocean preservation. I believe that this should be in schools.
Interestingly, in this case, citizens led the way; it was not government. I work in government as well, and sometimes you have citizens that come before you and say, “Hey, this is a good idea,” and government follows. In this case, we had citizens that led the way and governments are slowly coming to follow.
We have chapters of the fin-free movement and ocean preservation groups all around the world that came out of the Toronto effort. A Canadian movement is what started this conversation and is taking it across Southeast Asia, East Asia and throughout China. That’s an incredible legacy for us.
I would hate to see this bill not pass the third time around. I would personally be very sad to see it not pass. I think it would say something about our not being able to set vision and values together to get an outcome we’re looking for. The time has come.
Senator Gold: My question was actually posed by Senator Christmas and answered very ably.
I also support the bill. I think it is important that we do what we can to lead an international effort to ban the practice because the evidence we’ve heard, if I understand it correctly, is that notwithstanding many countries have banned it within their waters, as Canada has, there still is a rather vigorous trade and practice internationally. It would be helpful for Canada to be able to walk the talk and lead an international effort to ban this practice.
As you and Senator McInnis pointed out, there is a valuable market that will persist. It’s ultimately a cultural change, I guess, that we have to hope will evolve.
Thank you for your presence.
The Chair: Ms. Hui, do you have any comments to make on the questions you heard?
Ms. Hui: No.
The Chair: You’re fine?
Ms. Hui: Yes, thank you.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much both of you for being here. I truly appreciate your good explanation that this is not a cultural practice that needs to be defended in any way.
I know that some shark fisheries around the world are sustainable, where they do use the whole shark as food. Have you thought about the unintended consequences of the negative impact on the communities that depend on a sustainable shark fishery for their living?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Thank you, senator. I think this is why the bill is sculpted and shaped in such a way as to eliminate only the supply and demand around shark fin, which is the unsustainable practice of shark finning. If we were to follow the indigenous knowledge, if you’re going to take the animal, then use it all; waste no part of it.
But that’s not what’s happening now. If you think about the bottom of the ocean, in the Galapagos, even, you have carcasses of sharks, hundreds if not thousands, sitting at the bottom of the ocean. They’re not taking the meat or anything else from the shark. The only thing that’s valuable that takes up valuable space on the vessels is the fins. Those are the unsustainable practices we want to stop.
Regarding Canadian customs, as it stands right now, we outlaw shark finning in our domestic waters, but the fins are still imported. You can put it on a trailer and bring it into the country, no questions asked. You can’t even tell whether they’re endangered species. That’s the other thing that’s so troubling. In a survey done at Guelph University, they tested 129 samples of shark fin products, and 71 per cent of them were specimens from endangered species. There’s no way this can be sustainable. We have to eliminate the importation of shark fins into the country. We have to make sure that with the intention of the law to ban shark finning in domestic waters, we close that legal loophole, which has been left open for far too long.
Senator Raine: I note that shark finning is not illegal in China and Hong Kong. Do you think banning the importation of shark fins into Canada will perhaps make them consider doing the same thing? Is there a similar movement in China, mainland and Hong Kong, among young Chinese people as there is in Canada, recognizing the danger of what’s happening, to go against the cultural tradition? Do you see a chance to ban shark finning in China and Hong Kong?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Yes, I think that there is that chance. Like everything else, it takes a long time. It takes advocacy and broad education. I believe you will have a witness speaking who is from China.
Certainly there are movements afoot internationally, including those being led by Chinese people in the diaspora countries, in Asia, that are making the advances here. The conversation has become global. When we were first talking about eliminating ivory and the trade of ivory, that was a conversation that had to take place between government leaders, and maybe there were conservation groups around it. But now we don’t have to wait. We can actually have conversations just the way Joanna is being piped in right now. Young people are having those global conversations, and they are being crowdsourced. They are coming to the conclusion that they want their values to be reflected in government action. If the government won’t lead, these are not necessarily democratic places, so we have to recognize that. However, when we do have democratic places, like Taiwan, the conversations have gone that much further.
Senator Hartling: Thank you both very much for being here. It is very interesting. I watched Sharkwater over the holidays. Once you see that, you’ve changed your thoughts forever, and I really appreciate that.
I guess what you’re saying is that if Canada takes the lead and brings this bill in, that will do a lot for the country and not just going one municipality at a time. Is that what you’re asking?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Yes, senator, that’s exactly what I’m asking for. I can tell you that I’ve had other municipal leaders contact my office, simply because I took the lead earlier on, asking if they could get a copy of my member motion. So I know there is interest. When we get together at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, these things come up in conversation. They just want to know: How did you do it, and can I do it?
Mayor Crombie of Mississauga was actually the leader in Mississauga when she was still a councillor, when they initiated their ban right after Toronto did our ban. These conversations will continue on. What we’re hoping, of course, is that if there’s a national ban, it’s very fair; all the municipalities are bound by the same rules. It would be the provinces and territories.
But I do think there’s an interesting note in this. When I was having conversations with the Chinese Canadian business owners — and not every Chinese Canadian business owner cares about this, number one; only the ones who sell the product and profit -- one thing they said to me in Toronto was, “We would rather you not do a ban, because people can cross the street and go to Richmond Hill or to Markham.” These are all suburbs of Toronto. “If there must be a ban, let it be a national ban; therefore, it’s fair.” That came directly from the group that was in opposition to the Toronto ban.
Senator Hartling: It would make more headway if it was national. Looking at the video and what’s happening with the oceans and with sharks, once you see that, I think we would be leaders for the world, and then maybe there would be a domino effect.
Is there anything you want to add, Joanna?
Ms. Hui: Absolutely. Again, the next panel will confirm, but we saw 13 states pass a ban after the Toronto ban. So the world is absolutely watching us. We can be leaders. Toronto definitely was, and now Canada can be as well.
Senator Hartling: I really appreciate that, because at home I have a 12-year-old little cousin, and he’s supporting this issue. He’s already passionate about saving the sharks. I’m thinking a lot of younger people are getting on board, so we need to catch up with it. Thank you very much for your input.
Senator Ataullahjan: I’m replacing someone. I’m not a regular on this committee.
You say the conversation is global now. Besides the business people, who else is opposing this ban? There still seems to be a lot of money involved. We’re struggling to impose this ban, as we saw in the case of Toronto. I remember what happened and people opposing it. Who besides the business people are opposing this?
Ms. Wong-Tam: Locally, in Toronto, it would be simply the Chinese Canadian restaurant owners who serve shark fin in their restaurants. Not every single restaurant does, because the product is very expensive. Most of the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown do not serve shark fin, and the ones that do are the ones that may have been in opposition.
However, as I mentioned earlier, they said that if you ban it nationally, then it’s a level playing field. What they didn’t want us to do is to ban it city by city. In the absence of a national ban, oftentimes cities will try to create a bylaw to limit any type of use in licensed restaurants. That’s the way I would approach the ban if it doesn’t pass nationally. I would go back, follow the advice of the solicitor and create a smaller, more limited ban and take it right out of the restaurants.
The Chair: Thank you to our witnesses. It’s great to hear from you today and certainly participate in our discussion.
Welcome to our second panel. We have Sandra and Brian Stewart, the mother and father of Rob Stewart who wrote and directed the documentary film Sharkwater that we all had an opportunity to view. Tragically, in January, 2017, Rob died during a diving expedition off the coast of Florida.
Certainly on behalf of all committee members, I want to express our deepest condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, the family and friends of Rob, and commend him on the work he did in bringing this issue to light. His documentary has played an important role in our work here.
We also have Kim Elmslie, Campaign Director, Oceana Canada. By video conference from Beijing, we have Iris Ho, Wildlife Program Manager, Humane Society International. We welcome Iris also.
Ms. Stewart will begin with her opening remarks. The floor is yours.
Sandra Stewart, Sharkwater: Thank you very much to all members of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for inviting us to this meeting.
We wholeheartedly support the legislation. I want to thank Senator MacDonald for his important work on this issue. It’s the right thing to do. Our research shows us that 81 per cent of Canadians favour a shark fin ban at the federal level. An interesting fact is 81 per cent of Americans also favour a federal ban on shark fins in the U.S. as well.
Rob was a biologist, a conservationist, a filmmaker and he also authored two books. He produced the films Sharkwater and Revolution. He spent his life fighting for the oceans because he understood the critical role that sharks play in the health of our oceans and in the health of our planet. He spent much of his life trying to save sharks specifically, because of the barbaric nature of shark finning, how quickly we’re decimating their populations, and the impact of removing an apex predator from ecosystems covering 70 per cent of the planet.
Sharkwater premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006 and was released commercially in 2007. The film brought worldwide awareness to the wasteful and inhumane issue of shark finning causing the decimation of shark populations. It was an issue that no one was aware of before then. It won numerous awards, both here and internationally. Public policy laws changed throughout the world. Hundreds of conservation groups were created to save sharks and it changed people’s perception of sharks. They weren’t the scary monsters that people had seen in the movie Jaws.
Today this is widely known. You regularly see people diving and swimming with sharks. They’re majestic creatures that are vital to our ecosystem. And now all major conservation groups have silos that work with saving sharks, Oceana, WildAid, humane societies and WWF. Universities have courses in sharks now.
I think everybody has probably seen the image of Rob hugging a shark. Revolution premiered at TIFF in 2012. The sharks were back, but this one focused on a slightly different angle. Everybody knew about climate change. Everybody had seen Al Gore’s movie on climate change, but it was just starting to become a realization within the scientific community that ocean acidification was just going to be a major issue. It was going to kill the coral reefs and potentially take down the entire oceans themselves.
Life on the planet is interconnected and I think that was something that people realized was much more important at that time as well. Sixty per cent to 70 per cent of the oxygen we breathe comes out of the ocean. The ocean absorbs 90 per cent of our heat. It absorbs 90 per cent of the carbon pollution we put into the air as well. When they become damaged, they can’t do that as well.
Today the issue of ocean acidification and the loss of the coral reefs is well known. It’s even worse than what Rob had platformed in the movie Revolution. We think in the next three to five years maybe 90 per cent of the coral reefs are gone. The Great Barrier Reef is gone right now. They don’t think it can be saved.
Sharks keep fish populations in check: They eat plankton. Sharks are the framework for our oceans. Everything that is evolved in the oceans for the last 400 million years has had to deal with sharks as the top predators. If we take sharks out of the oceans, as the top predator, the populations of fish underneath them explode. Plankton can be eaten by everybody. It’s important to understand too that the entire terrestrial world on top survives because of the ocean as well because of the oxygen. We can’t damage the oceans and not affect our terrestrial world. Therefore sharks are super important. We need to keep the oceans in balance.
When Rob came to us and said, “I’m going to do Sharkwater 2,” we asked him why. Why not another follow up to Revolution, ocean acidification. He said, “Sharks don’t have that much time. By the time we figure that out, they’ll be gone.”
This way, they might still be here when we get that right.
Sharkwater has saved millions of the world’s sharks. A shark research organization actually credited Rob with saving a third of the world’s sharks. But we still kill over 100 million a year. So since Sharkwater was released 10 or 11 years ago, we have lost more than a billion sharks.
Barbara has sent out a short clip from the movie. We just did a rough-cut screening last Wednesday for some distributors in Toronto. There was a two-minute clip in there that really succinctly speaks to the issues that the committee is actually facing. So if you get a chance to view it, please do so. It’s only two minutes. Remember, the footage is low resolution, the music isn’t final and the audio isn’t balanced, so you really seeing a rough cut.
There are three separate things in there. Rob talks about how, since he did Sharkwater, and he thought he’d changed the world, so many countries have banned shark finning around the world. The problem is that importation is still legal. You can fin as many sharks as you want, and as long as you bring them into a country on a shipping boat, not a fishing boat, you’re okay. It leaves a giant loophole in the laws.
There is also a quick scene where they are on a pier in Cabo Verde and they see random fins on the docks there. They pick them up. It’s actually three marine biologists who are there with Rob. The person filming it is Chris Harvey-Clark from Dalhousie, and then there are two other marine biologists. There are three of them looking at the shark fins, and none of them have any idea what they are. Once you disengage a shark fin from a shark body, you have no way of knowing exactly where that shark came from, what species it is and whether it’s endangered.
There is a further scene in the movie where they are in Panama. Panama has made some kind of effort to ban endangered species shark fins. It’s just impossible. If three experts on a pier in Cabo Verde can’t ID a shark fin, there is no hope that anybody in a customs and immigration situation could do that.
You can test shark fins. It’s a long process. It’s costly. It’s just not practical.
The fins that you see them looking at on the dock are all tagged as coming from Spain, but they are 1,300 miles from Spain. The shark fin industry out in the middle of the ocean is very much unregulated. Things are regularly marked as something that they are not.
Shark fin imports into Canada have increased by 60 per cent, sadly. I can tell you a little bit about the shark fin industry. Ninety -five per cent of our oceans are totally unregulated; they are in international waters. Most of the regulations you see out there — there are bodies around the world that regulate some of these. CITES is an international organization, but it’s a treaty. Countries sign up, and complying with the regulations is voluntary. CITES has no enforcement.
I also sent around a list of the some of the organizations that manage some of these fishing treaties. CITES has three different appendixes. On appendix 1, there are no sharks. There is the sawfish, which is actually a type of ray and which is actually just a flattened shark. Sharks have cartilage; they don’t have a bone structure. What makes them similar is that they both have cartilage instead of bones.
So there is only one on the CITES 1 list. On the CITES 2 list, it’s very small: 12 of the 74 officially endangered shark species are there. CITES is a group. It takes a long time. You have to get a consensus of the countries to agree that they will put something on an endangered species list. But if you’re on appendix 2, you’re only really required to comply with that if the country you’re fishing in actually bans that as an endangered species as well. As an example — well, maybe Florida — the hammerhead is on a CITES 2 list, but it’s legal to fish hammerheads in the U.S. That CITES treaty doesn’t actually apply there.
Shark monitoring falls under other conventions such as ICCAT and IATTC. But these are tuna-fishing organizations that monitor the tuna populations around the world, so it’s a subset of that; it’s not the core focus. They don’t have a separate task force to monitor any kind of shark numbers.
NOAA monitors the U.S., but the majority of shark fins sold in Canada come from countries with weaker law enforcement than either the European Union or the U.S. Ninety per cent of shark fins come from shark fisheries with unsustainable populations. That’s in a report that was co-authored by Oceana, Humane Society and WildAid.
You have heard Dr. Steinke’s research that a large proportion of the fins imported into Canada are from endangered or threatened species. I think the witnesses from Fisheries and Oceans themselves noted it would be impossible to test all of the fins coming into the country.
Rob received numerous accolades for his movies. More than 130 million people have viewed those. Young filmmakers have championed and brought out pictures of themselves furthering conservation efforts.
The Ocean Ark Alliance in Australia has a South American channel they are launching shortly called Sharkwater. There is a $2.5 million research vessel out there right now patrolling the Pacific waters, doing research and offering filming opportunities for various filmmakers. Discovery has been on there and all sorts of high-level conservation groups and Nat-Geo.
Despite saving millions and millions of sharks, Rob knew there was more to be done. And I will pass it over to you.
Mr. Stewart: I let the boss do all the detail, and I am going to throw emotion into this. It’s a year tomorrow, and it has been a tough year. But we vowed that Rob’s mission would continue, and we have spent the entire last year, 24-7, without a break, making sure that movie could be finished and that we would bring a team together to keep the mission alive. Rob had one mission in life: to save the oceans.
He wanted to do it through media. He was a wildlife photographer. He travelled the world making beautiful photographs and having them published in magazines. His career was going great. He more or less stumbled upon the filmmaking side of this and decided the only way he could create change was by creating a movie he could get people to see. It was a huge task. It took him five years of his life, and it almost killed him. He got lost at sea. There is a whole bunch of things that happened to him.
He persevered and held on. He eventually got 120 million people to see Sharkwater. He changed government policy from four countries when he started making the movie to 14 and eventually 95. Now, over 100 countries have banned shark finning.
But the importation still exists. It’s always a loophole. I think Senator McInnes was suggesting there must be an economic thing going on. People are still finning them. The reality is that poor fishermen in countries like the Canary Islands can no longer fish for food. The sharks have been fished out, and the snapper we used to get isn’t there because sharks patrolling the islands keep the fish closer to the shore and the fishermen can go catch them. The sharks are gone. Now the fish have gone out to sea.
These small fishing boats haven’t got the capacity to go out to sea to fish anymore, so what are they doing? They are selling sand to maintain a living. People are being forced because of this unparalleled exploitation of the oceans that is not being monitored by anybody. There is no governing body in the world today that monitors what is going on out in those oceans.
As soon as you get past the territorial waters, it’s the Wild West.
Now they have something called transshipping. Countries don’t want to let people come in without the fins attached. What do they do? They offload it outside the territorial waters on these huge fishing refrigeration units and off it goes back to Hong Kong or Taiwan.
When shark fishermen were actually making a living fishing shark and they sold the fin, they’d get $5 for a fin. It turns up at $895 on the streets in Hong Kong. So shark fishermen aren’t getting wealthy; it’s the in-between man. It’s the guy who owns the boat.
It’s the mafia that is running it and keeping the business alive. It’s the illegal trade in shark finning that is killing the species. That’s what we have to set the example for.
If we want to stop the demand, and we understand that demand is being stopped by young people, the Chinese community, but what we have to do is set an example that this should be a practice that is outlawed worldwide.
Our objective is to go shark-free. Sharks are now turning up. And we will come back in a couple of years and say: Can you help us do this because it’s turned up in cosmetics and it’s turning up in fish stock? You’re now feeding salmon on the West Coast with shark. How could that possibly make any sense if shark is being eaten by salmon?
Fish pellets are made out of shark now. It’s turning up in livestock feed. We have pigs that are eating shark. We have to stop this. The apex predator is the most important element in the oceans today.
I don't want to make you feel guilty, but since 2012, 500 million more sharks have been killed. We could have set an example then. So please set an example now. Let me end this movie when we make it — and we are going to have it released worldwide this fall. We saw the rough cut and it’s very impactful. I would love to say at the end of that movie that the Canadian Senate passed the importation ban on shark fins in Canada, and say it proudly.
Rob was a proud Canadian. He wore it on his sleeve. He wore it around the world. He died doing what he wanted to do, and he died doing what he thought he had to do. We just want to continue that mission. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stewart.
Kim Elmslie, Campaign Director, Oceana Canada: Thank you, Brian and Sandra. It is amazing.
Good evening. Thank you for providing the opportunity to speak to you tonight, honourable senators. My name is Kim Elmslie and I’m the campaign director for Oceana Canada.
Oceana Canada was established in 2015 as an independent charity and is part of the largest international group focused solely on ocean conservation. We believe that by restoring Canada’s oceans, we can strengthen our coastal communities, reap greater economic and nutritional benefits and secure our future food supply.
I want to begin by talking about the oceans. I have a favourite quote by the British science-fiction writer and explorer Arthur C. Clarke, which is How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
The oceans represent approximately 70 per cent of the earth’s surface and are home to an astounding amount of riches that remain mostly a hidden mystery to us. Currently only 5 per cent of the world’s oceans have been explored. If you get into high resolution mapping, it goes down to 0.5 per cent.
We have better maps of the surface of the moon than we do of the oceans. At this point in history, 12 people have walked on the moon but only 3 have descended into the deepest part of the ocean, which is the Marianas Trench, 11 kilometres below the surface of the ocean. If you were to drop Mount Everest into it, and Mount Everest is about 9 kilometres, there would still be 2 kilometres of ocean. One of those people, I think, is filmmaker James Cameron. People are probably aware of that.
The oceans support all life on earth and they are under tremendous pressure. This includes stress from the impact of climate change, pollution and unsustainable fishing. Globally, the current rate of fishing is so unsustainable that it is estimated that 85 per cent of our fisheries are either depleted or recovering from depletion. If fishing continues at this rate, there could be no fish left to eat by 2048.
In Canada, most of our commercial stocks are depleted. Since 1970, an estimated 52 per cent of their biomass has disappeared, so half of this incredible resource that sustained so many for so long is gone in one lifetime. Certainly, I would think senators from the East Coast are well aware of this and probably experienced the cod collapse, one of the greatest fishing tragedies of all time. So we know what that means.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Fisheries can be rebuilt and restored to abundance. That’s what brings me to sharks. Sharks are not able to rebuild the fisheries. That’s what we can do through management. However, sharks are vital to maintaining healthy ecosystems.
Sharks are dynamic creatures. The largest sharks are the iconic and charismatic whale sharks that grow over 15 metres long. It’s incredible. Google them. They are amazing. Watch some video. The smallest pygmy sharks are six inches long. All sharks.
We are still learning about the sharks in our oceans. Last year, a new species of lantern shark was discovered in the waters of Hawaii. We are learning new things all the time. This summer our team was out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence doing an expedition, and actually the senator joined us on for a bit, and we were able to capture some of the first underwater footage of a porbeagle shark with Boris Worm on board with us, who you heard from last week. There is so much we don’t even know yet.
As you heard, many large shark species are the apex predators. The apex predators impact ecosystems in incredibly significant ways by preying on the weak and sick, removing them from the ecosystem, and also by preying on certain species, like rays, marine mammals and even smaller species that control populations of commercially important species, the species we want to eat: smaller fish, shell fish, crustaceans, and also the species that are important for dynamic ecosystems.
Researchers have found that some shark species promote the health of coral reefs through preying on invasive species and adding nutrients through their waste to the entire reef system.
Some scientists believe that the rapid decline of sharks we’re witnessing now could result in the complete rearrangement of entire marine ecosystems.
As you heard, sharks have been swimming in our waters and in balance and harmony for 420 million years, which is 200 million years before dinosaurs walked the earth. They have survived the first five extinctions, but they are no match for us, for humans. Sharks are one of the most exploited species on the planet. One hundred million sharks a year are killed. I have seen estimates higher, up to 200 million a year. So that’s approximately 11,000 sharks every hour, which is just an astounding number.
One of the greatest threats to sharks is the shark finning trade, the brutal wasteful practice that cuts fins off the shark’s body, discards it at sea, where it’s left to drown. As many as 73 million sharks are killed exclusively for their fins, nothing else. It is not for food, nothing.
Between 2000 and 2011, the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, reported that 16,850 metric tonnes of shark fins were traded around the world. Although shark finning is illegal in Canadian waters, shark fins continue to be imported, and Canada is the largest importer outside of Asia. As we have heard, the amount of fins that we’re importing is growing.
According to Statistics Canada, 170,000 kilograms of shark fins were imported just last year. So that’s a 60 per cent increase in the last five years of what we’re bringing into Canada.
As you have also heard, CTV and the University of Guelph conducted DNA testing on shark fins being sold in Vancouver to determine what species they were. The investigation found endangered scalloped and hammerhead sharks, vulnerable longfin and shortfin mako sharks, blue sharks, thresher sharks, among others. Of the 59 shark fin samples that were collected, an astounding 76 per cent were from shark species on the IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, list.
It’s important to note that a species is designated as vulnerable on the IUCN list, vulnerable to become endangered if the threats against it are not addressed. That’s what we are here to do, address those threats against these sharks.
In closing, I have two recommendations for the committee. The purpose of Bill S-238 is to ban the importation of fins that are not attached to the carcass of the shark. My first recommendation is to strengthen the bill by amending it to include a ban on the importation of processed shark fins, these would be the derivatives of shark fin, so that no product is coming in and that there is no loophole to exploit.
My second recommendation is simply to pass Bill S-238. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has banned the finning of sharks in Canadian waters since 1994 through the licensing conditions and Fisheries (General) Regulations. In March of this year, Canada will implement a mandatory fins-attached management measure for sharks. Passing this bill provides legislative backing to the existing regulatory and other special measures that are in place. It also provides a safeguard preventing fins from vulnerable species from entering our markets in Canada, and it ensures that Canada is not supporting the global shark finning trade but rather protecting sharks around the world.
Iris Ho, Wildlife Program Manager, Humane Society International: Greetings from Beijing. My name is Iris Ho, the wildlife program manager at Humane Society International, one of the largest animal protection organizations in the world, working to help all animals.
I manage our international wildlife policy efforts, and I oversee several underground programs in Africa and Asia. I suspect I might be the only person in this committee today who has seen and been inside of a shark fin processing facility in southern China. It was shocking, that I can tell you. The smell was overwhelming. The premises were filthy. The shark fin workers were removing fins from sharks. I have seen the tinniest sharks fins that were probably one fifth of my palms.
I was emotionally shaken when I saw that tiny shark fin, which I knew came from a small baby shark. I have also personally met shark fin dealers across the world. One of the shark fin dealers I met was in Pointe-Noire, which was a coastal town in the Republic of Congo in Central Africa. This shark fin dealer was very proud, telling me that he regularly shipped one or two tonnes of shark fins to Hong Kong, as recently as the previous month that I met him. As we were chatting, he showed me the business card of one of his best pals, he called him. The business card belonged to the most well-known seafood dealers out of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong and China collect shark fins from over 80 countries and re-export them to countries around the world, including Canada, which is the largest importer of shark fins outside of Asia. This gives Canada an opportunity, or some would argue it’s an important responsibility to help sharks by ending your contribution to the shark fin trade.
HSI has been on the forefront of saving sharks from cruel shark finning and curbing the global demand for shark fins. In the United States, we have helped pass shark fin bans in 12 states and three pacific territories.
What was important and encouraging to me personally as an Asian-American was that these shark fin bans were championed by Asian-American lawmakers. In Hawaii, we had then-senator Clayton Hee; also in California, we had assembly member Paul Fong; and in New York, we had assemblywoman Grace Meng, who is now a federal congresswoman.
These measures received overwhelming support from Asian-American public officials in their states. I stood side by side with them and mobilized conservation and animal advocates because we recognized, collectively, that we had a power and ability to save sharks. And we must stop this prominent threat that drives the slaughter up to 100 million sharks every year, which is the global demand for shark fins.
In the U.S. Congress, bipartisan legislation is pending in both chambers that will prohibit the import, export, trade and sales of shark fins.
This is a movement led by Asian animal protection groups. Across the Pacific, advocates in Asia have been very outspoken against the shark fin consumption and trade. Members of China’s National People’s Congress had introduced motions to prohibit the shark fin trade. In 2012 the government of China announced that shark fin dishes were banned from official functions. Soon after, the Hong Kong authority followed suit.
Just last year, China’s national air carrier, Air China, announced a ban on shark fin cargoes, joining several dozen airlines around the world, and shipping lines, including Air Canada, to take a strong position in support of shark protection.
Ocean protection -- or, in this case, shark protection -- transcends cultures, ethnicities and nationalities. Shark finning is not only a shockingly cruel and horrible practice, it also puts the balance of the ocean’s ecosystem at risk. This is an urgent ecological crisis and one that needs co-operation from the international community to address.
As apex predators, sharks are vital to healthy oceans and the future of our planets. In fact, more than 70 per cent of all oxygen is generated from our world’s oceans. Having a harmonious relationship with our oceans and marine creatures is paramount for our long-term survival.
If sharks go down, we all go down. Yet, around the world, sharks are continually treated as disposable commodities that are ours to use for profit and luxury goods.
Shark finning is not just cruel; it is also ecologically devastating. One third of shark fins across the world are from species at risk of extinction. In Canada — a previous speaker has addressed this — recent DNA testing conducted by Dr. Dirk Steinke, who was a witness in this committee before, found that 76 per cent of the fins came from at-risk species identified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Further to that, in 2017, Environment and Climate Change Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada conducted shark fin probes in Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. They found that of the shark fins they collected, between one quarter and one third of the samples were identified as being CITES-protected species of sharks. Sandra Stewart mentioned earlier that only 12 of CITES shark species are listed to be protected. We know there are over 60 species of shark fins currently circulated in the global shark fin trade. We’re talking about a very tiny percentage of sharks that are being protected internationally.
In 2017 alone, Canada imported over 170,000 kilograms of shark fins, an increase of over 65,000 kilograms per year since 2012. Meanwhile, according to Chinese government reports, shark fin imports into China were down 82 per cent during the same time frame. As mentioned, Canada is the largest importer of shark fins outside Asia. But this is not what Canadians want. A poll conducted back in 2013 revealed that 81 per cent of Canadians support a ban on the trade of products of shark finning.
This is really an opportunity for Canada to become the first large industrialized country to ban the import of shark fins, in keeping with Canada’s commitment to preserve our oceans.
This is an urgent situation. There is scientific consensus that sharks are among the most threatened wildlife worldwide and populations are disappearing fast.
We agree with Senator Raine and Senator Ringuette’s suggestion that there should be an amendment that this bill includes all products with processed shark fins as well. This will be an important loophole that we must close.
Dear committee members, I have been very encouraged by the momentum I have witnessed to save sharks, from the South Pacific to China to the United States, my adopted home.
Growing up in Taiwan, I did not know that shark fin soup came from sharks because the dish was called “fish wing soup” in Chinese. But tremendous education and awareness-raising has occurred over the last decade.
Today I continue to receive so many requests from Chinese citizens asking for information on shark fin-free materials.
This bill matters, not only to supporters in Canada, but to the many advocates I work closely with every day far away in Asia who continue to do all they can to protect our oceans and to drive behaviour changes in their communities for the better for sharks and our oceans. They count on your support, and I do as well. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you.
We will go to our deputy chair, Senator Gold, for our first question.
Senator Gold: Thank you.
I have to say I’m moved by all your efforts and commitment, and I commend you for it.
Sandra and Brian, perhaps I can begin by expressing our support to you, your efforts to keep Rob’s work alive and to continue the good work he was doing.
The essence of it was education, in a sense, and that leads me to my question. The problem is clearly international, as we understand. It’s international because notwithstanding the banning in many jurisdictions of the practice of shark finning, in international waters, it’s the Wild West. I think that was the expression you aptly put. Even in areas where it’s banned, regulations and laws are not necessarily enforced and there’s economic incentive for people to do it.
If we pass this bill, as I hope we will, and it gives Canada the moral authority to take the stage and try to encourage others, I’m struggling with why we’ll be the first country to ban it, in the sense that the problem is now understood. Countries have banned the practice. Why have other countries not taken the step that we are now contemplating doing to ban the importation? What’s missing in the education or advocacy efforts?
I’ll conclude with a cliché about not letting the better be the enemy of the good. Nothing I’m saying is suggesting that we shouldn’t be doing this; on the contrary. I’m perplexed why we'd be the first to do it when there has been such an increase of consciousness about this practice.
Ms. Stewart: Quite a few countries around the world have banned it, maybe 13 or 17.
Mr. Stewart: Nobody of the stature of Canada has banned it yet. Places like Bahamas have taken an industry that was about $3 million to $4 million for shark fishing and turned shark tourism into a $210 million business. That’s the extraordinary opposite of what we’re talking about here. That’s what we have to look at. The issue is what I’ve referred to. It has taken since 2012 to get to the point we’re at now.
Each country has its own set of issues. Others are dealing with issues where shark finning is not of paramount importance and there aren’t people like the Humane Society International and conservation groups to drive it. When Rob started the Fin Free chapter in Toronto, there are now 100 chapters in the world today. People are realizing it’s all about education. That’s the reason we vowed to continue the movie and Rob’s mission. We get emails every single day from young people that he has changed their lives. People from all over the world and every country have stepped up and said, “We want to help Rob continue his mission.” That’s the reason we’re still doing it. People need the education.
Part of doing the movie is to further that education and explain to people that it’s not just about finning. It’s more than that now. Not only are we killing for the fins, but for liver. It’s turning up in cosmetics. People are smearing shark liver oil on their face from major cosmetic brands. It’s all about education. People don’t know what they don’t know.
People in China didn’t know shark fin soup was made with shark fins. There’s huge misinformation in the world today about this. You don’t know you’re getting shark fin. It’s being labelled as rock salmon. It’s being called oceanic white fish when you go to restaurants; it’s shark. If you go to most fish and chips stores throughout Europe right now, the fish you’re getting is shark. If you get a fish taco on the beaches of Mexico, you’re eating shark. You’re not told this. You don’t know this. The only answer is education. Ask intelligent questions.
They say that when you go to the restaurant and get the special, half the time when you get fish in a restaurant, it’s not the same fish. It’s a mislabeling issue. As consumers, this is of paramount importance for me and you. You need to ask intelligent questions. Where was this fish caught? What is this fish? You have somebody saying it’s black-eyed shark. There’s no such thing. But we get this information coming to us as we were shooting the movie, because they’re hiding behind the fact shark is shark. It’s not. We have evidence of them selling halibut in California, labelled halibut, but it’s shark. How is it possible?
Ms. Stewart: There are a significant number of states in the U.S. that have banned the trade and sale and importation of shark fins, including California. They’ve had many legal appeals against it, but it’s held up.
Mr. Stewart: Most of the West Coast of the United States has banned shark importations of shark fins. But it is education that’s the single biggest problem. People don’t know.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you. I have to tell you my daughter introduced us to Sharkwater. She was such a fan of Rob’s. I’m glad his legacy lives on. I’m struggling with the fact that until China and Hong Kong ban finning, how effective is it going to be in other countries when that seems to be a huge market?
Mr. Stewart: No doubt.
Senator Ataullahjan: Educated consumers. The demand is there. That’s why people are supplying it.
Mr. Stewart: My response to that, and Rob’s would have been that it has to start somewhere. It’s one step in the right direction. It’s very easy to say no. Throughout my entire sales career, my sales guys said the easiest answer you can get is a no because it’s non-committal. If you say no, you don’t have to take any action. If you say yes, you have to take action. That’s what we have to do here. We know the problem is in Southeast Asia. We know the problems with the powers that be and the Taiwanese mafia and all of the things we discovered while making these movies.
The reality is that we have a chance. As the second leading importer of shark fin in the world, we have the power to make a statement to the world stage and say it’s wrong. Even if we’re only 2 per cent of wrong, we’re still wrong. This is what we have to step up and do. We have to say that it’s wrong. It’s morally wrong to wipe out a species.
If the last panda goes down, as a species, man doesn’t stop to exist. If the last elephant dies, man does not go down as well. If the last shark goes down, the balance in the ocean goes and we go down with it. And your grandchildren and their children will not have a life as you’ve seen it. That’s the most important thing.
This is not about us. We’re the generation that screwed it up. We didn’t notice. We were too busy consuming things. We were too busy with our lives. Now it has been brought to our attention. Now we have an obligation to do something. That obligation is on behalf of the kids of the future. They will never see the ocean as I’ve seen it. They’ll never dive on a reef as I have. Is that right? No, it’s not. They should have the same opportunity to enjoy nature as I’ve had it and you’ve had it, but they will not now. If we let sharks go down, the total threat to man goes with it.
That’s why you can love pandas -- they look cute -- and save elephants and tigers and lions, but if they’re extinct, it doesn’t change our world. This does.
Ms. Stewart: In China and Asia, I think you’ve heard from various witnesses over this meeting and some past ones, attitudes are changing within the Chinese community itself. Sharkwater, when it was released in 2006-07, brought awareness to the issue. You can see that the Chinese government has made a move to ban shark fin soup at their banquets. We’re hoping the momentum is faster and people in Asia adopt this faster.
Even if we’re a small percentage of the market, it’s $100 million a year, so 1 or 2 per cent is still a substantial number of sharks. Starting here and making another statement, which is where the original Sharkwater originated from and brought awareness, I think it would make a huge impact on the world.
Mr. Stewart: And as we travel the world, which we will be starting in October, we’ll be going to countries like Australia and New Zealand and all over the world presenting the movie. As we do that, who would be prouder than a Canadian saying my government was one of the first to step up and start this? If the last movie reached 100 million, this movie might reach 200 million.
We will be giving it away free at some point to the world. We have a job and if I live long enough, I hope to do it. I think the key is that we need to take steps, one step at a time. This year we do this and we will come back to you in another year or two and say we have to go broader and stop the importation of any shark product and this is why. The evidence is building. We have the evidence of companies — it’s in your pet food. If you have a cat, you’re probably feeding your cat shark. How does this make any sense?
The Chair: I think Ms. Ho would like to make a comment.
Ms. Ho: Yes.
Thank you, Mr. and Ms. Stewart for mentioning the changes we’re seeing in Asia.
I’d just like to add that there are discussions among the Hong Kong lawmakers looking at addressing the limitation of the shark fin trade in Hong Kong. Awareness is really the first step but lawmakers in Hong Kong and Asia are also catching up on what they can do policy-wise. We cannot effectively be talking about saving sharks and telling Hong Kong and China to do their part if we’re still importing, in Canada’s case, so many shark fins from these jurisdictions. That undermines our credibility.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Ho.
Senator McInnis: Thank you very much.
It was Bill C-380 that was defeated on second reading and then there was Bill C-246, which I haven’t read, to modernize animal rights. I don’t know what all was in there, but it was defeated on second reading.
Let me caution you this, because you don’t want to be disappointed. Starting tomorrow, we will be in the Senate and the House of Commons for approximately 40 days. For this to get through on time will be a challenge. The reason I say that is you always have the fear of prorogation. Many people expected it to take place in January. That’s where the government hits a stop button and has a Throne Speech and everything.
There are possible ways, with motions and so on, to get this back on the Order Paper, but it’s a challenge. I just want to caution you that there’s a lot of work, and if we’re all in support of this, we should expedite it as quickly as possible in the Senate. That’s the first comment I would make because you don’t want to be disappointed here, and I’m afraid you could be.
Now, there are numerous species of sharks -- and, forgive me, I don’t know a great deal about them -- on the endangered list that I saw here in my notes. In the last 50 years, 89 per cent of the hammerhead sharks are gone, along with 80 per cent of the thresher sharks, 70 per cent of great whites, 65 per cent tiger sharks and so on.
Ms. Stewart, there was something you were saying about CITES and that the treaty didn’t apply for the United States on an endangered species. Would they not be signatories to CITES?
Ms. Stewart: I’m sorry, I didn’t make that clear. Regarding all of the signatories to the CITES treaties, it’s an international treaty so you don’t have international trade with that. But for all of the countries individually, if it’s legal to fish something within your country you’re still allowed to do that. It only applies to the international trade in that species, so it would apply to Canada. I think the porbeagle is on this list as well. So if it’s on the list -- if you’re a Canadian fishing in Canadian waters and it’s legal to fish the porbeagle -- it’s fine. It only applies to the international trade portion for the appendix 2 CITES groups.
Senator McInnis: Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you. I have a statement first for peoples’ edification. You’ve all mentioned the importance or perhaps the necessity of fine-tuning this bill with some amendments. I want you to know we’re working on that with our legal department and I suspect something will come forth before this leaves committee.
Because our time is tight and I will have an opportunity to speak to our guests at the table later, I think I will direct my question to Ms. Ho. I want to thank you for being here. I know it’s early morning in Beijing and I want to thank you for your patience and contribution here this morning.
Canada would be, as far as I can ascertain, the first country to implement such a ban. I would think and hope it would have a domino effect with other countries to see Canada take a stand on this. I think we have a reasonably good reputation around the world with regard to these types of issues.
I’m curious what your reading of this is from Beijing and what you think the response would be from Asian countries and others you’ve worked with over the years on this issue.
Ms. Ho: Thank you, senator. I can’t agree more with your assessment this would have a huge impact on lawmakers and advocates in Asia. Over the years, I’ve done so many speeches here in China on shark conservation. I must say that at that time, 12 states and pacific territories in the U.S. were looking at banning shark fins and that action encouraged so many Chinese advocates I was talking to. They were telling me that if lawmakers at the American state level can do that, why can’t our government do similar things?
The fact is that your legislature talking about banning the importation of shark fins is going to encourage lawmakers in Hong Kong, the Philippines and elsewhere who are looking for a model to address their shark protection measure. It would be a tremendous boost for them to look at what advocates and lawmakers can do in their countries. This is something I’ve learned from my years of experience working in Asia. They need to know they are not alone and that across the pacific, in Canada and elsewhere, there are lawmakers and advocates who are on their side as well.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you.
Senator Munson: Thank you very much for being here and for your testimony. It’s very moving and extremely important. I’m sorry, I have a bad voice today.
You talked about China stopping the service of shark fin soup at banquets. I think it could stop serving all shark fin soup at all banquets in China. They certainly have the power to do that and Canada can do more.
I’m curious about the illegality out in international waters. Somebody is on the take. Who is on the take? Lawmakers, in collaboration with these brokers who can go out and make not a quick buck but steady millions of dollars? Why isn’t there some kind of international regulatory mechanism in place to get after this sort of thing? There are people tonight who are still doing quite well on this business no matter how much we talk about it.
Mr. Stewart: In every country Rob went to, there was always an underground, black market usually controlled by Taiwanese boats, and what they call the Taiwanese mafia. Countries like Costa Rica give this perception they are a green country and pro-conservation and pro-environmentalism. They’re having an election this week. In the last couple of weeks they have arrested four or five people on conspiracy and fraud charges all related to the things that go on behind the scenes.
The Taiwanese docks in Costa Rica are not supposed to be there, yet there are private docks there that take in five tonnes of shark fin every weekend when the inspectors are off, because they only work Monday to Friday.
There’s a system built in the world today that’s being controlled as a billion-dollar industry where it’s an illegal system. It’s fraught with really bad people that don’t care about the future. They’re all chasing the dollar. If it was the fisherman out in his boat making the money it would be one thing, but it’s not. There are multimillionaires in all these countries where shark finning is taking place and they are controlling the fin industry in those countries. They’ve been identified. Part of what we’ve been doing is Rob went undercover. We had to hire security for Rob because for $50 you can have somebody killed in Costa Rica. There’s a huge amount of this going on.
Ms. Elmslie: A lot of how fisheries laws and regulations have come into place is that a lot of fish are along the exclusive economic zone. Normally, fisheries laws fall under the jurisdiction of the country because you can go out to your exclusive economic zone. For the most part, you can control your abundance. You can control your take. It works fairly well.
There are some international agreements on how we manage these. But it is the deep sea, the high seas, that we don’t know. There have been discussions and talk and a growing awareness about what is happening on the high seas. I do hope that this will be something that we can look at, that we can address. Certainly, with the G7 coming up, oceans is on the G7. It’s certainly something that I think, in your roles as senators, could be pushed. What more can we do, through the bodies that we have, to control fishing on the high seas because it’s impacting all of us?
The Chair: I want to thank our guests for their presentations here this evening. Certainly, it has been a very interesting debate.
Before we rise, I would like to let my colleagues know that the next meeting will be Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m., and we’ll be having people from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada to answer some of the questions that we have proposed to them based on your bill. So we hope to have the answers. We’re working towards it. Thank you very much again, and good evening.
(The committee adjourned.)