Agriculture Committee on June 6th, 2016

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

Yes, absolutely.

Maybe I'll preface my answer by answering your first question about whether we should be concerned about the bees and whether losses are a problem across the country: yes. Over the last nine years across Canada, we have an average rate of loss of 26%. Some of the more acute losses have been documented in Ontario. Just to get back to your first question, then, yes, honeybee health is an issue across the country, and I don't think there would be a beekeeper across this country who would argue that.

Perhaps to get to your native bee question, sure, there are many more species of native bees across Canada and in all parts of the world than there are honeybees. Native bees certainly contribute towards agricultural pollination. Their density and abundance are very dependent on the local flora in an area and in crop margins.

One way of thinking about it is that with the way agriculture is managed in most of the developed world, the honeybees are sort of our go-to managed pollinators. Those are the ones we domesticate most readily and that we move around most readily and can place most readily on crops to achieve the degree of pollination we need on most crops, but not necessarily all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Pernal and Mr. Peschisolido.

You have the floor, Ms. Brosseau, and you have six minutes.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses who are with us today.

We all agree that it is very important to protect bee health. I remember witnesses who spoke to the committee about this a few years ago. They spoke a lot about the losses they had suffered.

It was pretty devastating to have those apiculturists come to committee and talk about their losses. It was really devastating.

I think this is a complicated issue. There's no silver bullet solution for it. There are a lot of factors, I think, that contribute to the loss of honeybees. A few years ago when we lost a lot of bees in Ontario, there were tests done. I think they were done by Health Canada. They concluded that in Ontario 70% of those bees, I think it was, that died and were tested had neonics in them. In Quebec, it was about 80%. I know that the honeybee council said that our honeybee population has dropped by an estimated 35% over the last few years.

As for working together with industry, farmers, and federal and provincial governments, it's really important. It's important that we all work together to better understand bee health and solutions. It's important that we work collaboratively.

Ms. Johnston, you were talking about testing and monitoring. How long has the government been testing, monitoring, and evaluating bee health?

[Andrea Johnston]

That's probably a question for Dr. Pernal, since he's been the lead scientist in terms of surveillance.

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

Thanks.

Certainly the federal government and Agriculture have always had concern over honeybee health. If you look over the long term, they have always been interested in looking at treatments for honeybee colonies whether for varroa mites, which are a long-standing problem in Canada and most other parts of the world, or other diseases and pests.

I would say more recently, though, that we've had a few larger-scale projects. One is now in its fourth year looking at interactive effects on honeybee losses in Canada. Also, notably, we're in the third year of a project looking at a national survey for honeybee health across the country. I think in more recent years, in the last three to four years, we've seen the government be more willing to fund and more proactively fund studies that have looked at some of these interactive effects, and look at very broad-scale studies asking us about the health of the industry across the country as opposed to perhaps studies that are much more discrete, which look at interactive effects on individual colonies themselves.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Is the data collected through a voluntary national survey? Is this information that was just given to you? I know you have some people in Beaverlodge, Alberta, and you have people in Ontario and Quebec, I think, or just in Ottawa working on bee health.

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

We have people across the country working on bee health. In terms of honeybees, the primary site for working on that is here in Beaverlodge, Alberta. For some of the larger projects, we are working with partners across the country to give us the reach to study in different areas. Agriculture Canada has other professionals looking at native bees, including those in Ottawa, in Calgary, and in Kentville, Nova Scotia. We have professionals who specifically look at factors related to native bees and the health of native bees as well. We have professionals in several locations.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

What kind of work happens in Ottawa?

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

Most of that is systematics, although there is some disease-related work as well. At the central experimental farm in Ottawa, where you are, you have certainly the Canadian national collection of insects, and we have a systematics expert looking at native bees and diversity, abundance, and factors that may be affecting their health as well.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

When we lost the bees in Ontario, I think it was due to a few factors, but I think it was the dust, and now I think we've taken care of that because there's a type of treatment that helps mitigate the dust getting into the air and then affecting the bees.

I know the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development tabled a report in 2015 about pesticide safety, in which she found that, for over a decade, the pest management and regulatory agency had authorized the use of certain neonicotinoids without first confirming whether the risks were acceptable.

Do you know if the government will conduct other studies to ensure that all the risks are acceptable?

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

PMRA is intensively reviewing neonicotinoids and risks associated with them. Certainly the PMRA also has some internal studies looking at the risks of neonics to honeybees. So in terms of risks to honeybee health, I think the PMRA is in a better position to answer that question, although within AAFC we are looking at relative residues of insecticides in hive products and in crops, and by simply looking at the levels present, we can also do a cursory evaluation of how available they are to bees in realistic field settings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Brosseau.

Thank you, Dr. Pernal.

Now for six minutes, we have Mr. Peter Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thanks very much.

I represent a very urban riding, but around my riding is an area that is rich in agrifood and plenty of farmland, so my interest in this issue comes largely from that.

This has been hinted at, but just to be clear, a number of factors have been pointed to as being responsible for the decline in the bee population that we've seen over the past few years: parasites, habitat loss, loss of food supply, queen bee quality, weather, general hive management, and exposure to pesticides. Can you rank these factors in terms of responsibility? Is there any information, any data on that list of factors to indicate a descending order of responsibility?

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

If I knew the answer to that question, my job would be a lot simpler.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I don't mean to be so simple about it, but I'm saying do we have any information at all on key factors, key variables that are responsible?

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

I think we know what key factors interact, and I think their interactions are very much dependent on the region, the severity of weather, for example, the crop systems, but the facts that you mentioned are essentially the leading culprits. We have a very complex system now of introduced diseases and parasites, which are more difficult to manage. Canadian beekeepers do have tools to use them, and by and large if management is good, that does quite a lot to try to keep these parasites and pathogens in check.

Certainly, exposure to pesticides is very much dependent on the crop system, the region of the country, and that can have a greater or lesser extent on colony survival, as does nutrition. We can have bees in areas of the country which have good nutrition most of the year and others that don't. I think the key is trying to elucidate, as you suggest, the interaction of these factors, which is perhaps the biggest push, if you will, towards colony survival, especially over winter.

Within AAFC, we're actually running a study like that right now, trying to look at the interactive effects of supplementary nutrition on honeybee colonies and disease treatment to see which of those two factors may in fact be the biggest influence in colony survival, particularly over winter.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have a question about wintering loss. There's a great deal of variation. In 2006-07, we were at 29%. In 2014-15, it was all the way down to 16%. In the years in between, we're talking about 35% in 2007-08, down to 25% in 2013-14. There's huge variation here.

Why is there so much variation? Are there particular variables that are responsible for this that you could point to?

That question goes to anybody.

[Dr. Stephen Pernal]

I'm assuming I'm supposed to speak to this, and somebody else can join in if they wish.

Certainly, there are many factors affecting survival, and a huge one is weather as well.

In a year that we have particularly high losses, my observation has been that it can be related to the severity and length of winter, which can be very regionally dependent within Canada, of course. It is also, to some extent, the ability for some of our effective disease and mite controls to bring down this disease and mite levels to acceptable levels before winter. Inevitably, a colony which isn't well treated and isn't well fed going into winter will experience a high loss. There are certain environmental factors that can affect that, which again can be the inherent weather, and also some of the forage availability to bees in the fall if they're not well supplementally fed.

We will experience swings. What I would point to is that we now have nine years of very good data looking at winter loss, and there are swings. Overall, if we look at the level of loss, it's still on average fairly high compared to our long-term losses, which would be around 15% over winter. We're still a good 10% above that, but perhaps the trends indicate we're moving in the right direction, and we have to continue to do so.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I have one more question, Chair.

There are, of course, different types of neonics. A recent EPA study in the United States and a recent pest management regulatory agency study looked at neonics, and the results vary. The EPA study was negative in the use of cotton and citrus, but no real risk when it comes to corn, berries, and tobacco. The PMRA study showed negative impact when we're talking about tomatoes and strawberries, but no risk with corn, soybeans, melons, pumpkins, blueberries, and the list goes on.

With a particular type of neonic, the most common being imidacloprid, can we say there are particular ones that are more likely to cause problems? Is that beginning to become clearer in the research? Do you have any information on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We're going to have to push that question to your next turn. Thank you, Peter.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Yes, I guess I tried to make it a little too complicated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We'll move to the next round.

Ms. Lockhart, you have six minutes.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

If you'd like to go ahead and answer that question, go ahead on my time.

[Scott Kirby]

I'm the one who would be answering that question.

The answer to that question is that at this stage we don't know. Right now, we're doing a targeted re-evaluation of all three Canadian neonicotinoids. We released our preliminary assessment on imidacloprid just this past January. As you've pointed out, both Canada and the U.S. showed different impacts, depending on the crops.

That's not because it's a different chemical being used, because in all cases from the imidacloprid it has to do with how the product is being used and on what it's being used, so the differences are not necessarily about different neonics. It could be about what you're treating with. In some cases, those were seed treatments, so again, there's less material out in the open and being sprayed about so the bees get exposed. In other cases, such as tomatoes, with foliar sprays, there is more potential for exposure for the bees while they're foraging. We found during our preliminary assessment that the mitigation measures that are on the label now to protect pollinators from spray drift from foliar uses, such as on tomatoes, are adequately protecting bees as it is.

Next year we'll be publishing preliminary risk assessments for the other two neonicotinoids that are registered in Canada, which are thiamethoxam and clothianidin, and then we'll be able to see whether there's a big difference in risk between those products.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.