Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it.
Good afternoon. My name is Chris Andrews. I am the administrator of the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance, a national organization that represents the ornamental sector across Canada. This industry, the single largest sector in horticulture, comprises both the floriculture and the nursery industries.
According to the economic impact study performed by Deloitte in 2009, the ornamental horticulture sector is an important part of Canada’s economy, contributing an economic impact of over $14.48 billion. The ornamental horticulture sector is the second largest employer in primary production agriculture, surpassed only by dairy and cattle farming, according to the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council report from ESDC. If we include our full value chain, we employ over 220,000 Canadians in over 135,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
Since the inception of COHA in 2006 by the partners, whose own time goes back to the early 1920s, we have been engaged with the federal government through a number of departments—for example CFIA, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, ESDC, Health Canada, PMRA, PMC, and a whole bunch of other acronyms that are well known up there—and have worked with our partners to continue to improve the way in which we work with legislation, domestically and internationally.
We are here today to provide our support of the changes to the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act through the adoption of UPOV 91. Our industry has long been at a disadvantage competitively and globally under the PBR UPOV 78 and we fully support the moving ahead with its adoption. We have further expressed this opinion through our inclusion within Partners in Innovation, which has been active in its lobby for this move. With this action we will move to a level playing field with our international community and it will provide us with new plant materials that we have long been unable to obtain.
The success of the ornamental sector in Canada depends upon new and innovative plant materials and varieties, many of which would arrive from other countries and our competitors. We are very active in plant research and innovation here in Canada and have a global reputation due to the new plants we have developed over the decades. We currently have, in Canada, in excess of 8,000 different plant varieties. We have a large advantage in that we have 10 hardiness zones across this vast country that give us an advantage that other countries do not have. This is shown well through the Plant Breeders' Rights Office in Ottawa, which processes the largest number of applications for protection from the ornamental sector: over 70%.
I will ask you if you may remember when plant breeders' rights were first introduced to Canada in 1991 under the UPOV 78 convention. Unfortunately, after 65 years of efforts, it came too late for the extraordinary Explorer roses, which were developed over the years by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and were lost to a world that loved them, as we had no protection in those days. We had to buy our own plants back. My suggestion is, let’s not let that happen again to our new and innovative Canadian-bred varieties. Let's move this adoption forward in consultation as soon as we are able.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.