Thank you.
I'm chair of the Canadian Council on Invasive Species. It's an organization that was established about 10 years ago as a result of a national invasive species forum that called for an out-of-government, national voice for invasive species, except the term, "invasive species" wasn't so often used at that time; it was called many different things.
I'm the chair of that board. I hail from the home of the mountain pine beetle in central B.C., and I have been at the front edges of B.C., northeast B.C. and Alberta, as we've talked about keeping it out of this area, so I'm very familiar with that discussion. I know that's not popular here, but I've lived and breathed this for the last 10 years.
The Canadian Council is a federally registered, non-profit organization. It has a board of directors that is representative from coast to coast to coast. Its mandate, its format, its direction came from not just the first national invasive species forum in Canada, but the successive ones because they provided that direction. It's a non-profit, four-chamber board, so it has federal, provincial and territorial governments on it, industry, businesses, the indigenous, and it has chapters of the provincial and territorial invasive species councils that exist in Canada.
That's the model of the board. There are two main drivers for the board and for the council: pathways and partnerships. You'll see those two themes throughout. When we talk about invasive species, based on the national invasive alien species strategy, that normally means outside Canada or outside a region; it's foreign to that area. The federal government has defined that term.
I'm going to talk for just a couple of minutes about the Canadian council and then I'm going to talk about our recommendations to you, as a standing committee. I talked about our main themes. We've done a number of things. We've held a number of national invasive species forums; we held the first North American invasive species forum here in Ottawa about three years ago in partnership with the federal government. The forum rotates among Canada, the States and Mexico. We've also had a number of national workshops where we drilled down on some of the key themes, such as mapping invasive species so that people can have access to knowing where the forest pests are in Canada; the aquatic invasive species; and how we can share data better, both across and beyond governments.
We facilitated the North American invasive species framework, which now Environment Canada, Mexico and the United States are working on. We've developed a range of other programs such as national outreach campaigns because we all know that for invasive species prevention, it's important to have the Canadians on side.
As we take a look at how we move forward when we talk about forest pests, I looked at a number of the other presentations you've had. You've had lots of information about the economic impacts; I think that's a given. You know that forest pests cause a huge economic loss to us at an urban and a rural level. At the beginning, people thought forest pests were just that rural forest thing; they didn't realize they applied to the urban environment, and that's wrong. Forest pests are a major theme for urban forests also.
The other part I want to raise on behalf of the Canadian council is that we look at it not just as an economic issue, but as an environmental issue. Healthy forests are important for Canada from the biodiversity side, which we're pretty proud of in Canada, and also species at risk. Very few species at risk strategies don't list invasive species as a top threat that's causing the decline. If we take the economic and the environmental risk, invasive species, forest pests are a huge issue. They affect our trade. We put in place a lot of trade regulations, and a lot of regulations are put on in Canada to reduce the spread.
Recognizing that you probably already have a good handle on the impacts, I'm going to talk about what we think are some of the things that need to be addressed from a forest pest side. I'm going to end up with five specific actions. First, for all invasive species including forest pests, economically and environmentally the best thing by far is prevention, stopping that species from getting into that region or that country. Once it's there, the second step is to have an early response and quickly eradicate it. If you don't do that immediately, you're usually in a control mechanism to try to reduce and contain that population. All the research consistently shows prevention is your best, most cost-effective tool. To have effective prevention or quick response, you need to be organized ahead of time across governments, have a good plan, and understand roles, responsibilities and resources because no forest pests recognize borders.
The other area we need to look at is that even though we might be talking more free trade or open trade, when it comes to forest pests you actually want more barriers. You want more barriers in place so that we're not bringing them in. We need the public to be aware so that the public can take action. Many of the forest pests are moved by people. Building on what Dr. MacLean said, partnerships are really important. Again, just like pests don't recognize jurisdictions, you have to work together on it. There's no sense us tackling one species in B.C. if Alberta is tackling a different species. We'll both be ineffective at it.
I have some recommendations on behalf of the council.
First, over top of everything else, we need to close the borders. You've talked about spruce budworm and mountain pine beetle. They already exist in the country. Dr. MacLean would be far more familiar with this, but a number of spruce budworm varieties exist. They're native to someplace in Canada. What's not native to Canada is the Asian gypsy moth, I think, or the pink gypsy moth. Those are all foreign to us. If we can keep those out of the country....
Some of them are established. The European gypsy moth is back east. It's not out west. Right now the Asian gypsy moth has been eradicated from Canada. If we let it come in, we're going to have the cost of trying to eradicate it and control it in the future. We need to close borders for sure.
We need to make sure that we have cross-border collaboration under way within Canada and across our borders. All the forest pests coming into the country are generally coming in through trade. They're coming in on cargoes, container ships, etc. Yes, there are trade implications. Wood packaging has to be treated. We have a lot of container ships coming in that could bring in the gypsy moth or other species.
We need to involve the forest industry. Working in partnership is really important, because the forest industry has a vested interest in the economic side. They can also be a lead in helping to reduce the spread within the country by adopting and implementing best practices. Many of them are now working under different forest certification programs. More and more of those certification programs are recognizing those best practices.
Firewood has been identified as one of the pathways, within Canada and beyond Canada, for spreading forest pests. Our council is working with Natural Resources Canada, CFIA, and other partners to make sure there's a national campaign to stop the movement of firewood. Yes, it applies to regulated areas for specific pests that Environment Canada or CFIA has regulated, but it also applies outside of that area. In the same way we see people recycling now, we're looking to have people handle firewood responsibly in the future.
Across Canada there are different regulations for different forest pests, and lots of places that don't have regulations. Again, federal, provincial and territory governments need to take a look at and understand where there are gaps in our regulations so that we can either close them or work around them. A big one for the council is making sure we have national information hubs. That's come out from every invasive species forum we've ever had. Can we have better national mapping so that people have access to knowing how far the spread of X invasive species is? Where is that forest pest? What's coming in from Washington or from the south?
Those national information hubs would also help involve people. For most invasive species, many times they have been reported by citizens, engaged citizens who have reported the weird bug in their backyard or the weird fish. Getting people to report invasive species is really important.
Definitely there should be investment in research, not just for the surveillance side but also to see what we can do if that pink gypsy moth does arrive in Canada—or the nun moth, which will make the gypsy moth look minor. If it does arrive, we need the tools ready to go.
I'd like to close with just a couple of comments. First, we need to be prepared. New Zealand and Australia are lead countries, often, in biosecurity. We have trade restrictions for wood packaging. We also have container pre-certification processes for containers coming into Canada by other ports checking them out. However, we don't have one of the tools New Zealand has, which is pre-certification for used vehicles. Used vehicles are actually a major transporter of invasive species. That's where your egg masses will hide, etc., and be moved over. So we could be taking a look at other countries like that.
Some of the tools they've used in the south include having all partners contribute to the biosecurity of the country. The federal level, states, industry and importers—the trade—all contribute to the biosecurity around those countries. Those will be tools, because resources will always be an issue.
I want to close and thank you in particular for putting this on your agenda and recognizing that forest pests are a big issue for Canada. I thank you for having the time.