A Chinese cook in Regina could pay $8,400 in fines if a court convicts him for cooking a fish provided by a customer who turned out to be an inspection officer.Andrew Mok faces three charges of marketing fish illegally, contrary to Section 49(2) of The Fisheries (Saskatchewan) Act. The charges relate to incidents that occurred December 17, 2023, February 6, 2024, and September 26, 2024.Mok was cooking at a Chinese restaurant in Regina in the spring of 2023 when he cooked for a customer who would later implicate him.“He told me, ‘I like spicy fish. Can you make me a fish that’s spicy?’ And I make him Sichuan style…with bean spout and with soup and on the top with fish, spicy,” Mok said in an interview with the Western Standard.According to Mok, the man complimented his cooking and asked him what kind of fish he cooked. He replied it was a Vietnamese fish called basa. The customer said he worked at Hudson’s Bay Mining and Smelting, adding, “On my spare time I catch a lot of fish with my friend. Next time I bring you some.”Mok said he replied, “Fine, you can do but I don't need it for selling, okay. This for my myself, okay? You can bring me [some], no problem.”.The next December, according to Mok, the man returned with a party of five to celebrate a birthday and asked him to cook fish that he brought.“And then after I cook for him. I believe him. And [said] ‘How's that taste?’ He said, ‘Very good. And then give me another one,'" Mok recalled.Each fish was about $21 on the bill. However, Mok decided as a courtesy he would knock it down to $40, as the customer had provided his own fish for the birthday celebration.“I said, ‘Okay, because you give me, I don't want free fish. Because you have to catch and driving all the time out a long way to here, okay, just deduct your bill…$40 is you give me the fish.'”Mok said the customer gave him other fish, but said it was for Mok’s own consumption. Mok said he honoured this stipulation and never charged for those fish, nor for any Mok has caught and cooked from nearby lakes.Mok did not know he was cooking for an inspection officer until, after another two instances, he faced three fines for marketing fish illegally.Mok said the first notice was put on his house door but a subsequent one was given to him at a new restaurant a week after he began working there casually. He said the targeted attention concerned him and he does not know how authorities even knew he was there..Mok has already made a handful of court appearances, but had trouble defending himself over the alleged 2024 incidents.“‘It’s too long [a time]. They confusing to me. I’m not particularly remember this. I have too many customers,’ I told the judge,” Mok recalled.Mok said the court provided a Cantonese translator for legal proceedings, but barred the public from the courtroom to ensure the name and appearance of the restaurant inspector is not known to the public. Mok is defending himself alone, saying lawyers told him every day in court would cost him $6,000.Mok claims he acted in good faith but has not found good will from the prosecutor. “She don't want to let me go and want to nail me in this,” he said. Mok, who is 75 years old, says the proceedings are “ridiculous” and “not fair.”He said he only works casually now, but is still proving for his family and cannot afford the fines.“I'm a very honest man, and I always pay tax, for more than 50 years for the government, you know, and now I suffer,” Mok said.The potential fines also seem excessive when compared to similar cases in other provinces. Last November, Albert Joseph Thomas Blaney was fined $5,000 after poaching clams at the Klahoose First Nation reserve on Vancouver Island. He was discovered by border patrol at a ferry terminal with 22 bags of clams hidden in his car with a total weight of 1,750 pounds.Mok's next court appearance is April 28.
