BREAKING Average hourly wage in Canada now $34.95: StatCan
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
Turns out that cut of salmon, snapper or white tuna you love may be more mystery meat than you’d hope.
Approximately half of the seafood found in retailers and restaurants in major Canadian cities is mislabelled, according to a new, small-sample study in which a conservation group's researchers tested samples in restaurants and grocery stores across the country.
“Canada has a pervasive and unchecked seafood fraud problem, putting Canadians, honest fishers, ocean ecosystems and our seafood economy at risk,” said the authors behind Oceana Canada's latest investigation.
They found 43 of the 94 seafood samples taken from Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto retailers were mislabelled. And although this study had a relatively small sample size, the rate was nearly identical to that of a past investigation of 472 samples taken by Oceana Canada between 2017 and 2019.
All 24 samples of butterfish, yellowtail and white tuna were mislabelled. Among the 13 samples labelled as snapper, seven were found to be tilapia, which is a much cheaper species.
And there were 10 instances where products labelled as butterfish or tuna were actually escolar, which is a cheaper species that has been known to cause gastrointestinal symptoms.
According to the report, Montreal was the worst offender with 52 per cent of its seafood being mislabelled. Ottawa and Toronto came in second, with exactly half of all seafood samples being labelled as something other than what was advertised.
Halifax fared the best overall, with only 32 per cent of its seafood samples being mislabelled.
The report also highlights a discrepancy between the seafood found in restaurants and the grocery aisle. The study found mislabelling rate among retailers and grocery stores was 6.5 per cent, while the rate in restaurants was a whopping 65 per cent.
According to its website, Oceana Canada believes that Canada needs to do more to ensure consumers have a sustainable source of protein. Part of that includes pushing Canada to make good on a 2019 pledge to create a system whereby seafood is fully verified for what it is and how it was caught.
In a statement to CTVNews.ca, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said that while fish is considered an at-risk food group because of how valuable certain species of fish can be, their own study from March found that 92 per cent of all fish was “satisfactorily labelled with proper common names.”
“The agency took appropriate enforcement actions on all unsatisfactory results,” the statement continued. “This included letters of non-compliance, product seizure and detention, relabelling to bring the product into compliance, and product disposals.”
The CFIA also implemented food traceability standards for international shipments, which allow for easier tracking of fish that may be misrepresented.
“The Canadian Food Inspection Agency works to protect consumers from food misrepresentation by conducting inspections, analyzing food samples, verifying that food labels and advertising materials comply with regulations, and conducting surveillance,” the statement added.
Sayara Thurston, Oceana Canada’s seafood fraud campaigner, said her group is calling for boat-to-plate traceability in Canada and is calling for a scheme requiring catch documentation for all domestic and imported seafood
"Buying fish shouldn't be a guessing game. Canadians deserve to have confidence in the seafood they eat," she said.
Although the United States and the European Union do have traceability systems for their seafood, Canada does not require that seafood include information proving its origin, legality or sustainability status.
"As other parts of the world strengthen existing traceability systems or develop new ones, Canada falls even further behind,” Thurston said. “The federal government committed to addressing this almost two years ago but has not made any real progress. The situation is clear, and given the lack of progress, unsurprising: seafood mislabeling is still rampant across Canada."
The latest findings was also released alongside market research, conducted by Abacus Data for Oceana Canada, which found 87 per cent of people were concerned by the recent findings, with a similar number concerned about illegal fishing in Canada.
With files from CTVNews.ca Writer Ben Cousins
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
Andy Kim's 'Rock Me Gently' is marking a major milestone, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Oprah Winfrey said on Thursday evening that she has long played a role in promoting unhealthy and unrealistic diets.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Toronto police say a man who allegedly attempted to access Drake’s Bridle Path property was taken to hospital on Thursday after an altercation with security guards.
If you're cruising down a highway and realize you have a flat tire, you may want to think twice before stopping to fix it on the side of the road.
Dangerous storms crashed over parts of the U.S. South on Thursday even as the region cleaned up from earlier severe weather that spawned tornadoes, killed at least three people, and gravely injured a boy who was swept into a storm drain as he played in a flooded street.
The National Post is reporting that Rex Murphy, the pundit and columnist who hosted a national call-in radio show for decades, has died.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.