# URGENT Meeting on importing tropical fish



## bob123 (Dec 31, 2009)

I thought this might be of interest to some of the members of this forum. On Friday March 11 2011 at the Holiday Inn at 970 Dixon Rd. from 10:00 am. until 12:00 noon concerning the new regulations that are going to be put into place by CFIA ( Canadian food inspection agency) in December 2011. This will restrict the importing of certain fish by anyone whether buisness or private individuals such as importing from the USA. no more than six fish for personnal use anything more will require that you use a broker. his meeting is being put on by Tom. Mason curator of the Toronto Zoo. I hope some of you can attend as this is very important to the hobby. If this passes you can expect to see a dramatic rise in fish prices. 

Thanks for reading Bob.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

bob123 said:


> I thought this might be of interest to some of the members of this forum. On Friday March 11 2011 at the Holiday Inn at 970 Dixon Rd. from 10:00 am. until 12:00 noon concerning the new regulations that are going to be put into place by CFIA ( Canadian food inspection agency) in December 2011. This will restrict the importing of certain fish by anyone whether buisness or private individuals such as importing from the USA. no more than six fish for personnal use anything more will require that you use a broker. his meeting is being put on by Tom. Mason curator of the Toronto Zoo. I hope some of you can attend as this is very important to the hobby. If this passes you can expect to see a dramatic rise in fish prices.
> 
> Thanks for reading Bob.


That sounds pretty ridiculous. Why do you need to hire a broker to import fish when you've been doing the same thing for years? Damn bureaucracy...


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## Web Wheeler (May 13, 2006)

Thanks very much for the alert!


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## Cypher (Apr 15, 2006)

solarz said:


> That sounds pretty ridiculous. Why do you need to hire a broker to import fish when you've been doing the same thing for years? Damn bureaucracy...


It's stupidity and greed.

Greed: They want to generate more fees so the hobby will have to pay the government more money. Just a way to fatten up their bottom line and justify their ridiculously high government salaries.

What they don't understand is they're going to kill the hobby/ industry this way. Less people are going to want to pay extra $$ on fish, stores are going to close down.

Stupidity: I smell the stinking hand of peta in this.


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## Jorg (Jan 14, 2011)

Does anyone have a link to a government site where this proposal is listed or any other information regarding this ? I searched and found nothing.


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## dp12345 (Sep 12, 2010)

this will bring down this hobby.
If you will not allow us canadians to bring in the fish we want, why allow this broker to do it for us. What are the qualification of this brokers. Why do the government limit the importation of ornamental fishes to a few brokens? Who will control the prices?
That is why we can't import fishes from the US. 
Wake up, this is a decent hobby.

dp


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## bob123 (Dec 31, 2009)

Jorg if you can e-mail Tom Mason at the Toronto Zoo he may be able to lead you on the right path. Good luck.


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## Guest (Mar 10, 2011)

I don't know where the broker thing has been proposed, I don't see that in any of the stuff by the CFIA. Importing fish is like any commodity and if you know how to clear them through customs yourself a broker will be unnecessary. What would the broker be responsible for that you couldn't do yourself. Plants require an import permit and don't require a broker. Permits are required for a few things but that doesn't mean you need a broker for them.

Brokers are only required if you want to streamline the importation of large volumes of commodities and you do it often. The voluminous amounts of paperwork are best left to those who specialize in customs documents. Fish importing is pretty easy.. adding a permit requirement is not going to change it too much. It may slow it down a bit and may exclude a few species but the impact will have a more noticeable bureaucratic effect than anything else. The requirement of a health certificate for many exports from a few of the important tropical fish exporting countries is already being met. Some farms in the US already provide these certificates for European importers so this should be fine too.

here's the link btw

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/aqua/imp/impe.shtml

we will just have to see how this plays out... the date has already been pushed ahead from this March to December.


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## Richard A (Feb 7, 2011)

Oh! know you mean know more Tilapia for dinner. I use a broker all the time when importing from the US, anything over $2000 now requires to be brokered across the border and I beleave the reason is simply that customs Canada just can't handle the paper work and inspection load by itself and has now passed the work on to brokers who work on there behalf for a fee based on value. How many times have you bitched about the broker/import fee when the UPS man comes to the door.

Richard


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## advanced reef aquatics (Apr 20, 2009)

We broker all our own coral and fish shipments. no one can force you to use a broker. if you know how to do a b3 your off to the races. these all exceed value of 2k, right now the problem is importing fish food a cfa is concerned with bovine products. we must have original paperwork from manufacturer every time we cross the border, pia. im surprised fish food prices havent skyrocketed.


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## fishopolis (Sep 23, 2010)

um, from what i'm hearing, the meeting is not an open meeting.. it is being held by the cfia, not by tom mason (although i know tom does want to attend)..

meeting is open to members of pijac based on what i am told by the cfia..

the whole idea behind import restrictions is to control the transmission of aquatic diseases globally.. canada's efforts are just part of the global initiative being organized by the oie..

i have not heard about any 6 fish limit (if that's true, then i guess at least i'll save money on shipping lol - will check into this).. what i have heard is that permits will be required for cdn importers (if ur trying to import aquatic species that are on the list).. zoosanitary health certs will be required from the exporter.. some additional conditions may be required of cdn importers.. these have not been decided 100% yet.. which is why the cfia has been meeting with industry..

i have to admit, my heart rate went up when i heard about the proposed restrictions :O, but now that i've done some research, like harold says, whatever happens is going to happen.. (that's not exactly what he said, but u get what i mean.. )

not sure how the whole thing will play out, but it could end up having a minimal impact on cdn hobbyists while at the same time decreasing the risk of introducing new aquatic diseases to canada... but then again i've been wrong before.. lol.. so don't quote me on it!

i sent a detailed email out to about 30 contacts that i know are involved in importing fish (either as hobbyists, retailers, or wholesalers).. based on recent conversations with the cfia.. if interested, u can email me thru the contact page..

brian


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