Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for this opportunity to speak about a very important issue of pandemic prevention.
I am Melissa Matlow, the Canadian campaign director for World Animal Protection. We are an international animal welfare charity with offices in 14 countries and more than 300,000 supporters in Canada. We have general consultative status with the United Nations. We are members of the civil society 20 that is engaging the G20 and we have a formal working relationship with the World Organisation for Animal Health—the OIE.
Working together with environmental and infectious disease experts, we are encouraging the federal government to take a “one health, one welfare” approach to preventing pandemics through curbing the commercial trade in wild animals and products made from them, not only to prevent pandemics, but also to prevent animal suffering and biodiversity loss.
I should say that we are concerned about the growing legal commercial trade in wild animals that, in our opinion, is under regulated, unsustainable and presents disease risk. Our focus is on non-essential wildlife use such as exotic pets, entertainment and trinkets. It's not on subsistence community use.
It is widely acknowledged that wildlife markets, breeding farms and the trade supplying them played a significant role in the outbreaks of SARS and COVID-19.
In April, the one health tripartite—the World Health Organization, UNEP, and the OIE—issued emergency guidance that called on national authorities to suspend the trade in live-caught wild mammals for food or breeding. That guidance also stated that it was relevant for other wild animal uses.
Canada should adopt these recommendations immediately, but more transformative change is needed. Seventy-five percent of new or emerging infectious diseases originate in animals, mainly wildlife. These include MERS, avian flu, Ebola, SARS, HIV/AIDs, Nipah virus and monkeypox. I could go on, but I won't.
Recent reports by UNEP and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services recognized the commercial wildlife trade as a key pandemic driver and animal welfare is at the root of it.
When a variety of different wild animals that wouldn’t normally encounter each other in nature are kept in close proximity in crowded, unsanitary and stressful conditions, it is the ideal environment for the emergence and spread of infectious diseases that can then be transmitted to humans. These conditions exist throughout the wildlife trade and studies show that the risk of transmitting diseases can increase significantly as animals are traded up the supply chain.
This is a global problem that requires a comprehensive global solution. Canada has an important role to play.
Our research shows that more than 1.8 million wild animals were imported into Canada between 2014 and 2019 and it would seem that the vast majority—93%—were not subject to any permits or pathogen screening. Animals are coming in for a wide variety of purposes, but there’s been a dramatic increase in the number imported to supply the exotic pet industry. We found that different federal government agencies regulate different aspects of the trade, with their own data collection systems and requirements. This is leaving gaps in important information like the names of species, the purpose of the trade, whether the animals were wild caught and the country that they come from. Once animals are brought into our country or if they are captive bred here, they are subject to a patchwork of inadequate domestic regulations. Nobody is tracking these animals.
Other countries are taking action on this issue. China has permanently banned the farming and consumption of many terrestrial wild animals and it is helping farmers transition to alternative livelihoods. In the U.S., the preventing future pandemics act, if passed, would prohibit the import and export of wildlife for human consumption and medicine. The Netherlands is fast-tracking their ban to end fur farming for good because COVID-19 is running like wildfire across mink farms. Germany has agreed to reduce the trade in wild animals for pets, ban the sale of wild-caught animals and set up a centralized trade register. Last month, Italy, which holds the G20 presidency, approved a ban on the trade of wild and exotic animals. Just a couple of days ago, Thailand announced its interest in being free of illegal wildlife trade.
We urge Canada to join these countries and do its part. Specifically, Canada should immediately adopt the guidance issued by the one health tripartite and prohibit the trade in live-caught wild mammals, promote a greater emphasis on pandemic prevention and address the key drivers of pandemics, particularly the commercial wildlife trade at the G20. It should urge the one health tripartite to present a list of wildlife species and conditions that present significant risks of transmitting zoonoses and guidelines for mitigating them. This was actually recommended at the G20 agriculture ministers meeting last year.
Here in Canada, to do our domestic part, we need to adopt a more preventative regulatory framework and improve our systems for collecting data and monitoring the trade. The federal government should work collaboratively with the provinces and territories to improve their regulations to significantly reduce the trade and improve enforcement through better coordination and resourcing across all agencies and jurisdictions.
Those are all my remarks, but I want to say that joining me today to help me answer your questions, I have two experts. Michèle Hamers is a professional biologist who works with our organization. She conducted our research on Canada's wildlife imports and is one of the leading experts in Canada on the exotic wildlife trade. Dr. Scott Weese has contributed his veterinary infectious disease expertise to our organization and this cause. He is the director of the University of Guelph's centre for public health and zoonosis, and is chief of infection control at the Ontario Veterinary College teaching hospital.
Thank you.