Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, committee members, for the invitation to address you today. As you are well aware, a couple of days ago you heard from the Canadian Honey Council's bee incident committee chair, Kevin Nixon, who outlined all the recommendations that the Canadian Honey Council has put forward in regard to pesticide incidents.
I'm going to try to put that presentation aside a little bit and give you a little bit of a different picture. I want to begin with the latest Statistics Canada report indicating that there were about 706,400 colonies in Canada in 2012. That's up by 10.7% from approximately 637,000 in 2011. The recent numbers from the Canadian Association of Professional Apiarists pegged the number closer to about 645,000 at the end of spring 2012. But despite these variations in numbers, and contrary to many other countries, this number has been on the rise for the past seven years.
I'll use the CAPA numbers. Of the 645,000 colonies in Canada, 486,000 of them, or over 75%, are located west of the Ontario-Manitoba border. According to the CAPA report, which they put out last year, for overwintering losses from 2011 and 2012, the average level for honeybee colonies across Canada was 15.3%.
This was the lowest wintering loss for Canada in the past six years. Every province in Canada had lower winter losses last year. It's important to note for this committee that although cursory information can be given for this year, the national survey committee of CAPA does not anticipate having verifiable overwintering numbers available until the end of July.
As the committee members have heard, honeybee losses are becoming an extremely important issue, regionally, provincially, nationally, and internationally, particularly as the value of pollination becomes better understood by the public. Weather, varroa control, nosema, environmental factors, and pesticides all play a role in these losses. It's important to note that not all beekeepers agree on the impacts that each of these components plays in losses.
The events that occurred in Ontario in 2012 have spurred the Ontario Beekeepers' Association to a course of action that is calling on crop producers to actively engage in integrated pest management strategies to protect pollinators.
More recently, the OBA has called for the suspension of all neonicotinoid pesticides, starting in the 2014 planting season. In addition, they're asking that beekeepers be compensated by the government for losses to crops, bees, and equipment due to deaths, chronic disease, or toxic residues in equipment caused by the neonicotinoid pesticide products from 2012 forward. This can be seen right on their website.
But they are not alone in their request. Earlier this week, the Fédération des apiculteurs du Québec adopted a resolution also asking for a ban on neonicotinoids.
To date, however, the CHC, the Canadian Honey Council, has been supportive of the joint efforts of the PMRA and EPA in the re-evaluation of the neonics and strongly believes that the decisions need to be based on science, not on public opinion or perception. Of course, one of the difficulties we're experiencing is that there are different interpretations of science, and that certainly muddies the waters for the Canadian Honey Council.
I can't say exactly what impact the resolutions from the two provincial associations will have on beekeeping overall in Canada, particularly because in western Canada the crop production is quite a bit different, and that's where the majority of the honeybees are situated. I would imagine that each provincial association will now be asked to comment on those two resolutions.
As it stands today, the Canadian Honey Council is working cooperatively with PMRA, CropLife Canada, and crop producer associations like the Grain Growers of Canada, and the Grain Farmers of Ontario, to mitigate risks and develop solutions that benefit beekeepers specifically, as well as those involved in agriculture generally.
I do want to add that the CHC has had at least two workshops with CropLife Canada and with the involvement of PMRA, equipment manufacturers, and producers associations. We are now looking at trying to find solutions as a result of those workshops. We have more planned in the future.
While I know the committee is focused on Ontario and Quebec, and particularly with the pesticide incident in 2012, honeybee losses still occur as a result of other factors. Many of these factors require significant research, and as the public sector has withdrawn somewhat from this type of research, the private sector has jumped in and filled the gap.
In smaller agricultural sectors like beekeeping, producers aren't able to fund primary research themselves. So companies that are involved in beekeeping shoulder that financial burden. They do a really good job, an admirable job. However, the line between perception and reality often gets blurred, and there comes an underlying belief that all research is skewed. Rightly or wrongly, however that's portrayed, it becomes increasingly important that our regulatory system has the neutrality to be effective in evaluating research.
While this increasing demand comes with increasing responsibility, and no doubt increasing fiscal implications, I hope this will be addressed.
Bee health, genetics, environmental diversity, parasites, disease, pesticides, and nutrition are among all the things that contribute to bee losses. These are areas of research that need considerable attention, as the future of pollinators may be in peril if they're not adequately addressed.