the great Canadian canned catfish conundrum

9% of Canada is covered by freshwater. While I will not site anything 'precisely' here, there are about 32000 lakes larger than 3square km. Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined...meaning above 60%. There are between 2 and 3 million lakes in Canada. About 70% of Canada's fish output is salmon, nothing shocking there, but with 155000 tonnes of fish and seafood outpout from Canada and salmon representing about 116250 tonnes of that...well.....

What I find strange in owning my restaurant Renard Artisan Bistro in Montreal which specializes in local food and products is that it is incredibly difficult to get local fish and seafood. My mussels come from Iles de la Madeleine, and I point this out because you will never find Quebec mussels in Montreal! Mussels in this city are all mostly from PEI. I get farmed lake trout from a few sources in the regions (and really not easy) and met a few fishermen in the Lac St-Pierre with all their barbottes, esturgeons, ecrevisses, etc ( with no deliveries). There are the usual lobsters, crab and Nordic shrimp, with the odd North coast Turbot. My seal meat is controversial and yet local...but....oh boy....

walking in a supermarket here you would think that we lived at the end of the world, with all that salmon, tuna (and mostly canned...second mostly consumed fish in the US!) pangasius, tilapia, and still more Cod, frozen sardines and basa fish the implication is almost is that there are only 10 varieties of comestible fish in the whole world. 

of course the client is in the end the moving force towards what is sustainable, and well....

,well, all this is disturbing. The major exporters of freshwater fish in Canada, which amount to 11204 tonnes (whitefish, perch and pickerel , come from Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, small figure from the world's leading freshwater country. I rarely see it here. What strikes me in Canada is that is that we commercially consume very little freshwater fish, and in Quebec I rarely see any of them in our poissoneries (Montreal), and if there is rainbow trout it either comes from the US or China. The fact remains that if we are in the age of sustainable fisheries, it logically follows that in a country such as Canada we would eat more lake fish...or at least vary our diet when considering these choices. If you really gave a fuck about eating sustainable seafood, then eat local catfish. Meaning that in a country with over 60% of freshwater in the world and 200 varieties of freshwater fish therein, the natural inclination and leadership of a real sustainable movement would be towards these tasty lake fishes, but for now it is all wrong.

Moving away from the world's most consumed fishes and seafood I think, as someone living in such a country is even more important than buying some Chilean farmed sustainable certified fish (probably the largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon! and they are on the Pacific coast, you see where this is going.....) or whatever make you feel good. Canada should go further, especially with so many resources....and education....

we shall sea.....