Emergency response effectiveness is one of the top ways we could look at doing that, perhaps the development of a national framework that would engage all these partners and actually assign leads. We have done an exercise with emergency response, implementing the incident command system in an outbreak situation, having people assigned to be in charge of the incident, people assigned to reach out to partners, that type of thing, setting that framework in advance.
With that might be the establishment of an emergency response fund so that it can be a very rapid response, so that the funding is there to access and doesn't require a lot of steps for approval. We certainly have that model as well for the mountain pine beetle in the case of Ontario. Possibly conduct and support exercises, go through a mock exercise of some of these types of responses to the different species that might be on the horizon. Then look to provide new tools for end-users, the biological control or the chemical control, or whatever research can be done with the federal government to provide some of those tools. In some cases, I know you're already doing that, with the emerald ash borer and things such as that. Another aspect is to make sure that the information is widely disseminated to the partners and that the partners are involved, and perhaps provide a mechanism to share those experiences.
Then I mentioned getting ahead of the threats by scanning the horizon, taking a role in coordinating some national studies and analysis and using a risk pathway analysis model, as we did for the firewood pathway, where you focus on how those pests are getting in. That was something we've done for firewood, and it can be done for other pathways. Perhaps you could look at allowing coordination of an information and data-sharing network so that everyone has access to the same information, and continuing to fund research and possibly partnering with organizations such as us to make sure that we can bridge that research to go out to the people who it needs to go out to.
The third thing would be to possibly engage with and fund provinces, industry and non-government associations to address the leading edge of the invasion, possibly a fund that could have other contributors as well. Industry might want to contribute, and there might be other organizations as well. Assess those high-risk stands near borders, using silvicultural practices to treat those high-risk stands and prepare in advance for that leading edge of the invasion, and adjust harvest accordingly there. In order to train those “eyes on the ground”, look at citizens science networks, keeping in mind that the provinces and the federal government don't have all the on-the-ground staff that we might need to help with early detection. Have the citizen scientists or the other groups on the ground and make sure they're well trained.
Communication is also a big piece. That's something we're very strong at, but just enable Canadians to help reduce the risk of spreading invasive species by high-risk pathways, human pathways such as carrying firewood. Ingrain positive behaviour into the societal norm.