Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee, for having me. I am the Alberta delegate to the Canadian Honey Council, and I have been chairing a bee incident committee for the Honey Council this past year, which was formed at the request of the Ontario Beekeepers' Association after the incidents were reported last year.
I sent out a document last week—I hope it was received and distributed—about the work the committee has done this past year. I'll go through it and broaden it a little bit and highlight some points.
The purpose of the committee was not only to look at the incidents that happened in Ontario; it was to look at the use of pesticides in general across the country, as there had been incidents reported outside of Ontario with other foliar applications of other products. So the purpose was to look at the broad-range use of chemicals in general and to use the Ontario incidents as a starting point.
The committee established subcommittees to deal with six focus areas. The first area of focus was the process for beekeepers to report suspected bee poisonings, and the second was the process for how the PMRA would deal with the report. We wanted to try to have a standardized way for beekeepers to report and collect samples and have them processed, so that it would be done properly under proper protocol, to allow the information to be distributed to the people who need to know about the reported incidents. Those were sent to PMRA, and I believe you'll be hearing from them in the coming days as well. As far as we understand, they were well received, and action was taken with the recommendations you have in the handout.
The third focus area was analyzing toxicity levels of chemicals and insecticides, and the fourth area was point of contact and where the risks are. In terms of three and four, we felt that if we as the beekeeping industry wanted to comment on the use of and need for chemicals and pesticides, we needed to be informed ourselves as to what they do, what they are, and why they're needed, so that we could have accurate, objective discussions about them. We did have a lot of recommendations come out on the issues. There are areas for both beekeepers and the crop industry to collaborate and learn from each other.
The fifth area of focus was recommendations and best management practices for all stakeholders: beekeepers, the chemical companies, seed companies, the growers, the chemical applicators, and equipment manufacturers. As we heard earlier, there have been round tables with these stakeholders. Discussion has been good, and in some regions this relationship has happened already and in some regions of the country it hasn't. So there's a lot of room for future relationships and partnerships to be built.
The final subcommittee's focus was on compensation for the loss of bees and production if an incident did occur. This committee is still working on finalizing some recommendations to bring to the board. It's a difficult one to deal with in a way. Provincial administration of agricultural programs varies from province to province, so there's a bit of work to do on that yet. We hope to have that wrapped up very soon.
To come up with these recommendations, the committee did collaborate. We had input from the Grain Growers of Canada, the Grain Farmers of Ontario, CropLife Canada, PMRA, provincial apiarists, and a couple of Ontario beekeepers, among others.
We also had a round table in Quebec City in November, where we were able to talk with a lot of these groups and start some good discussion.
I won't go through the recommendations. There are a lot of them.
As I say, numbers one and two were well received by PMRA. There's a lot of work to do here. It's reasonable. We'll need to prioritize some of them and start getting to work on them.
As we heard from Maria and Pierre and John, there has been some significant work started in dealing with the corn dust situation. The initial work has been fairly positive, I would say, from the other stakeholders. It may not be an immediate fix. I believe there are some trials being run this year. I think they recognize the importance of this, and we appreciate their efforts put into it as well.
I am also a commercial beekeeper from Alberta. About 70% or 80% of my operation does go to pollinate canola for seed production in southern Alberta. I keep some at home for honey production as well. I can entertain questions on that side as well.
A lot of what we're hearing lately in some reports is about sublethal effects. There were the initial kills, the sublethal effects; I think there's some science that needs to be done. I appreciate hearing the comment before that we have a science-based decision-making process. I think that's important. There's definitely room for some science to be done.
That's what I have to share with you.
Thank you.