A recent investigation, which tested seafood bought in Montreal, found more than half of the samples were mislabelled, adding to mounting evidence that "Canada has a widespread and unchecked seafood fraud problem," according to Oceana Canada. 

Seafood fraud is any activity that misrepresents a seafood product being sold. It threatens public health and food safety, weakens the environmental and economic sustainability of fisheries, and cheats consumers and the Canadian fishing industry. It also masks global human rights abuses by creating a market for illegally caught fish. 

A particularly troubling form of seafood fraud is species substitution: swapping cheaper, less desirable or more readily available species for more expensive ones. This can include swapping farmed products for wild caught and black-market fish for legally caught varieties. Mislabelling includes presenting false, incomplete or misleading information about the product.

Mislabelling can happen on this scale because the global seafood supply chain is obscure and increasingly complex. Once a fish has been caught, it can travel halfway around the world for processing, crossing many national borders before it ends up on our plate.

DNA testing conducted by Oceana Canada from 2017 to 2019 has revealed that an alarming 47 per cent of 472 seafood samples tested from food retailers and restaurants in six Canadian cities were mislabelled. This includes testing in Victoria (67% mislabelled), Montreal (61% mislabelled) Toronto (59% mislabelled), Ottawa (46% mislabelled), Halifax (38% mislabelled) and Vancouver (26% mislabelled).

In July 2019, Oceana Canada tested 90 seafood samples from 50 grocery stores and restaurants in Montreal, Canada’s second largest city, and found that a shocking 61 per cent were a substituted species or didn’t meet the labelling requirements set out by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). 

Learn more about Montreal Investigation Results and How to Fix Canada’s Seafood Fraud Problem.

Good news! You can take action to help stop seafood fraud. Join Oceana Canada, leading chefs, restaurant owners and seafood industry leaders in calling on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to make combatting seafood fraud a priority by tracing seafood from boat-to-plate.

You can also sign this petition, started by Valentine Thomas, a freediving instructor, published chef and advocate of sustainable eating, to stop seafood mislabelling in Quebec.

Reports claims that seafood fraud threatens public health and food safety, weakens the environmental and economic sustainability of fisheries and cheats both consumers and responsible players in Canada’s fishing industry.