Thank you, Mr. MacAulay.
It comes from various envelopes and various departments. Federally, the Department of the Environment has provided funding envelopes for projects on invasive species. As I said, the alien invasive species partnership program was funded until just recently by some funding from Environment Canada, which traditionally has had the lead on invasive species because it covers also terrestrial invasives. DFO does have funding envelopes for invasive species. The former minister, the Honourable Gail Shea, was at our conference a year or two ago and announced a small amount of funding from DFO for our invasive species program.
Provincially, the Ministry of Natural Resources provides us with approximately $300,000 a year in funding, which we match. We contribute equal to what they put into it. There are various pockets, little bits, dribs and drabs, that go on throughout the year and that come from various tiny little spots. But when you look at the magnitude of the problem, the amount of funding that is provided....
Again, I must stress that this is not indicative of this particular government. This is a chronic underfunding issue. I mean, I personally have worked for the federation for 11 years, and I've been arguing for more funding for invasive species for 11 years. This issue around sea lamprey funding goes back into the nineties, the early nineties. It wasn't until 2003 that the Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario formally stepped up and started to provide funding towards this.
So there are various pockets from various ministries. We certainly put money where our mouth is in terms of OFAH contributing to this. I've lost track of how many biologists we employ. Dr. Quinney can probably tell you. Between aquatic and terrestrial invasive species, we probably have no less than about eight full-time people working on this issue. They are all biologists. The Ontario Invasive Plant Council is now based at OFAH head office.
We take this very seriously, and we put our own money into this every year. We work with 150 cottage associations across the province and all of the commissions you can think of. Public education and awareness has been a focus of our program from day one.
I have left with the clerk some packages just as an example of what our program actually does on the ground.