Thank you very much.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here. My name is Owen Vanstone and I'm here today on the behalf of the ornamental horticulture sector, specifically representing the Canadian Nursery and Landscape Association, or the CNLA. I'm a member of the CNLA through Landscape Manitoba, as my family owns and operates a wholesale nursery in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, and has done so for 30 years. It's something I've grown up with; I've been around plants forever. I also serve on the CNLA board of directors as the chair of Growers Canada.
The CNLA is a not-for-profit federation of nine provincial green industry associations, representing over 3,700 member companies in the ornamental horticulture sector. This includes wholesale nursery growers; landscape construction, design, and maintenance contractors; retail garden centres; and other related industries. In concert with the provincial associations, CNLA develops programs, undertakes initiatives, and forms alliances in order to achieve sustainable prosperity for members and stakeholders engaged in the green industry.
The CNLA’s vision for our sector is “A prosperous, professional and ethical industry that is recognized, valued, and utilized by the public, as a result of the environmental, economic, and lifestyle benefits provided by our members' products and services”.
As professionals within our industry, we collectively see ourselves as stewards of the environment, and we encourage and promote sustainability and environmentalism at a grassroots level.
A recent study conducted by Deloitte in 2009 on the ornamental horticulture sector as a whole, which also includes the greenhouse floriculture industry, estimated the sector’s total economic impact to be $14.48 billion, comprised of $6.98 billion in output and $7.5 billion in value-added impacts. The ornamental sector overall generates $3.8 billion in employment income and another $1 billion in end user taxes. Ornamentals is the only sector within agriculture to pay GST, I might add.
Human resource skill development and capacity-building are priorities. Ornamental horticulture provides over 136,000 full-time jobs to Canadians. It's estimated that for every two jobs in the industry, another job is created in the economy at large. Invasive species that impact the overall success of the CNLA members have potential to impact our sector, with the consequences being a direct and very real effect on continued prosperity and job growth in the industry.
My presence before this standing committee today is as a result of a very last-minute invitation; as such, we have not had as much time as we would have liked to do all of our homework. Therefore I come here today maybe more to ask questions than to provide answers.
As an association, we wish to understand, for instance, the specific objectives of the study being proposed by the committee. How will the outcomes relate to the work on prevention and management that is undertaken by CFIA as a critically important part of their mandate? What's the role of this committee, and what are the connections to the management efforts that are being undertaken by the various provincial agencies, such as environment and natural resources ministries? What will be the connections to the provincial invasive plant or invasive species councils, which exist in every province, to coordinate the many complex issues associated with the control and management of invasive alien species?
The invasive alien species strategy for Canada, developed by Environment Canada and released in 2005, indicates a four-step approach to the management of invasive alien species, namely: prevention, early detection, rapid response, and finally, management of established and spreading invaders, including containment, eradication, and control.
The objective of this standing committee is to study the fourth point—the management of established and spreading invaders—for nine very specific weed and insect invasive species. Clearly, this is the most expensive option of the four. Many studies clearly indicate the millions, if not billions, of dollars that have been spent by various levels of government on both sides of the border in attempts to manage already-established invasive alien species. The success of these management programs varies significantly from species to species.
CNLA concurs with the Environment Canada strategy that prevention should always be goal number one. To that end, our association, in particular the wholesale nursery growing sector, continues to work very closely with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Beginning in 2004, when sudden oak death—another invasive pest classified by both CFIA and the USDA as a quarantine pest—was first detected on the west coast of North America, quick, proactive measures were undertaken by the industry. A best management practices program was put into place for B.C. nursery growers. Although this was an industry initiative, there was close collaboration with CFIA throughout. Recognizing that increased economic activity with other parts of the world, especially Asia, could well lead to other similar situations, CNLA members took the initiative to develop a phytosanitary systems-based approach to manage the possible spread of further pests, now known as the clean plants program.
The difficulty with prevention is the inability to state conclusively the actual benefit. Did the millions of dollars spent on any particular initiative save our government thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, or even billions of dollars in eventual management and cleanup costs? We can only speculate.
The CNLA represents companies in the entire value chain of the ornamental horticulture industry. The chain begins at the producer level and reaches the ultimate consumers, including home owners, developers, municipalities, and other government agencies, through our retail garden centre and landscape maintenance contract members. As such, we have the ability to reach many thousands of Canadians, who all must be engaged in any proposed management program. For instance, many garden centre members across Canada are already engaged in “Grow Me Instead” initiatives.
Landscape contractors have the ability to be similarly engaged in educating consumers. Our provincial associations are keen to work with provincial agencies and provincial invasive plant councils or similar bodies.
In closing, we wish to thank this committee for the opportunity to participate in this process, and we wish to express our commitment, as an industry, to developing and maintaining a sustainable and profitable industry while doing our utmost to mitigate the ongoing threat of invasive species.
I welcome any specific questions and comments on the weeds and insects identified within that list, and I thank you again for the opportunity to be with you today.