Science and Research Committee on Feb. 7th, 2023

[Charles Ennis]

The Royal Astronomical Society has all of its data online freely available for the world to see. If somebody wants to be a partner in the project, we have a drive on which we share information with each another. It's definitely available to anyone who wants it, for free.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. LeBaron, I just want to get a sense of.... The real power of citizen science is the fact that we have these long-term datasets, going back, in your case, more than a century over broad geography throughout the Americas or on eBird throughout the world, and the ability to do all this with very few paid employees.

Bang for the buck in citizen science, I think, is “astronomical”, if I can use that term, Mr. Ennis.

Mr. LeBaron, can you tell me how many people run the Christmas bird count, how many paid employees run that whole project, where they get that funding and what is done with that by governments across North America?

[Geoffrey S. LeBaron]

Sure. Thank you for that question.

Actually, you're looking at the full-time staff for the Christmas bird count. I am the only person, actually, who is full-time staff for Audubon in terms of the Christmas bird count. My boss helps with some aspects of the IT parts of the program in terms of management of the database, especially when something goes wrong. She's able to interface with our IT division. We have the ability to ask other divisions for their help. When the map of active circles goes down or isn't updating regularly, then I can contact the GIS folks.

Basically in terms of paid employees, it's just me and then one other person part time. It's—

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Just to interrupt, then, that's compared with—let's say for Canada alone, from my own experience—how there might be 20,000 people producing that data for you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Please give us a very quick answer.

[Geoffrey S. LeBaron]

There are probably 40,000 to 50,000 people in the U.S. who are.... It varies from year to year how many people are actually participating in the Christmas bird count, but there are roughly 2,500 or 3,000 compilers—the ones in charge of the counts—plus 70,000 to 80,000 observers. We also have a team of regional editors, getting to the accuracy point, who review all the data from every count submitted before it is actually finalized for a given season. That's all volunteer work.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you kindly.

Moving on to the five-minute round, we'll be hearing from MP Mazier for five minutes.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out to see us.

Being a farmer all of my life, I've had an opportunity to learn a lot from nature and a lot about science, and to understand what's going on in terms of the landscape. Unfortunately, being a farmer, I've had the opportunity, as well, to learn what happens when governments don't listen. I'll give you a brief example.

There was a small dams initiative started by government departments, and it was led by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. At the time, they said, “Here—the dam should go here”, and the locals said, “No, the dam should go over here.” At the end of the day, DFO won and they put this dam up in the wrong place, according to the locals, in the watercourse. As a result of this dam, the water backed up. It contaminated a bunch of wells. The streams started running backwards. It destroyed a whole bunch of ecosystems. All that had to happen was for the government to take into account the locals' knowledge.

I guess this is my lead-up question for you, Mr. Wood. How important is it for government to listen to citizens and consider that knowledge that's on the landscape when they're developing projects like this?

[Christopher Wood]

My sense is that citizen science provides a very good framework for listening. One of the things it does is to help structure things in such a way that they can be communicated so that both parties understand. Sometimes the local community may speak differently. They may speak a different language. They may have different ways of expressing something so that it isn't heard by the receiver. Putting it into a scientific context, I think, can be very helpful, so that both groups can understand each other a bit more.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

In your opening remarks, you mentioned that there was a gap between Canadians and decision-makers. What did you mean by that?

[Christopher Wood]

My remarks weren't specific to Canada. I think in general there's often a gap between local knowledge and where decisions are coming from. One of the things that citizen science can really help with is that, when it goes through the scientific process, it's a way of.... Basically, if you're able to report things in a standardized way, it enables the world, then, to have access to this information in a consistent way, so we understand that we're talking about the same thing in the same framework.

When I think of this as bridging the gap, it's a way of connecting people with data so that there's a shared understanding across both parties.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

How significant is this gap? How much would it take to start bridging that gap? What needs to happen?

[Christopher Wood]

I would probably ask Birds Canada or some of the partners who are more familiar with the situation in Canada. I'm not an expert in that.

I'll say from my perspective in the U.S., every bit helps. Every time that you start to understand another group and meet with them.... One of the things is that we're developing citizen science initiatives, particularly ones that can be more focused on specific questions. When we go and understand that community's goals, aspirations and what they're trying to address, it allows us to then structure things to be able to answer those questions, which is ultimately what we're trying to do.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Okay.

Earlier this week, Canada's chief science adviser stated that, if the government fails to engage with citizens when developing policies that impact them, “there is a loss of trust, and the loss of trust in institutions and in government can be quite costly and can erase a lot of the benefits that otherwise can accrue from all the efforts that both the government and many parts of the public actually work towards.”

Do you agree with this statement, and can you expand on the negative impact of governments failing to engage with citizens?

[Christopher Wood]

It's very important to be able to have feedback mechanisms in anything that we do. To me, again, that's the power of citizen science. It's people who live there every day, who are providing their observations and making them available. The opportunity is to build a structure, and citizen science is a mechanism to do that, that can allow people to connect in this way.

When you don't do that, my perspective is that it can lead to distrust. It can lead to people not understanding why policies are being enacted, and maybe even at the very best, if you don't take into account the data different people have, you might have suboptimal results.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you so much.

Now, moving on to the five-minute round for the Liberals, we have MP Sousa.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the presentation.

I would argue that government and levels of government have actually been working well to try to promote citizen science, engagement with the science community and engagement with citizens particularly. I say that only because, contrary to my colleague, Mr. Dan Mazier, I feel actually very privileged and comforted by the fact that there is an engagement. That's why we're even having this committee. That was provided by our former colleague and chair.

My point to this is that in my community there's a conservation area called the Rattray Marsh. We have a huge number of people who are engaged in bird watching, engaged with local authorities to try to protect and revitalize our waterfront and to protect those airsheds and watersheds. Their engagement to repopulate some of the species within an area that for years was an industrial area on that waterfront, to revitalize and rehabilitate the area, and to bring the creek back up to its natural state, is very rewarding. It's very rewarding for the community as well.

I compliment you on putting forward some of the initiatives that you've had to enable them to have a portal by which to share information, be it information about peregrine falcons that some of the industry groups are promoting, or even the citizens who are looking at the migration of a number of other species.

My question is very simple. How do you become a citizen scientist? What is that? We're talking about it, but how does one actually say, I'm a citizen scientist? What do you do?

[Christopher Wood]

That's to me, I assume.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes.

We do have a citizen scientist as a witness. I'd be interested to hear from him as well.

[Christopher Wood]

From my perspective, it's just starting. Just engaging with somebody who's already out in the field looking at things, you start to learn.

There's a whole continuum of citizen science projects. There are some projects like iNaturalist that are more on the educational aspect, which is just a matter of going out, seeing something for the first time and seeing the wonder in the world. The magic that happens starts a series of questions: Why is this here? Why isn't it somewhere else? What's happening with it?

Whether it's looking at the stars at night, looking at birds in your backyard or trying to understand the insects in your river, you just start by looking at things and that process fosters questions. That process of asking questions is ultimately what science is all about.

[Charles Ennis]

This is about getting people to look at what they're surrounded with and reintroducing them to the wonder that surrounds them. It is about citizen scientists going out there and teaching people how to do this. The young people we work with are the next generation of citizen scientists, so there's a continuum there.

We make all kinds of outreach events available at our observatories. People are introduced to the wonders of the sky. It's a completely different thing to look at a picture of Saturn than to see it in real time. Then you can see people who are passionate about it. That's really all it takes. Once you have the passion, you can get them interested in contributing to the project.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I appreciate that.

I also appreciate this notion of integrity. The web and the information out there.... We've spoken a lot about the misinformation that also exists. Enabling that integrity to be kept in check is critical. I see stuff on YouTube about these new birds that don't exist. That's just an example.

We need to be sensitive. That measure of accountability, your portal and a few other things that you're promoting and discussing today are welcome.

I don't know how you maintain it with respect to those that still proscribe and divulge information. People buy into it. Kudos to you for fighting back and enabling that integrity to exist. All of us have a sense of responsibility to also make sure that it is protected.

I don't know if I have anything more to add other than.... Give me your thoughts or an example of misinformation that is being promoted by someone who is or is not a citizen scientist or maybe proclaims to be, who is putting forward information like the world is flat, for example. It's out there; people believe it. People of some great degree of stature in the community are convinced that this is all bogus.

How do you deal with that misinformation that's out on the web? How do you protect us with regard to it?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

We are out of time, but I would invite the witnesses to submit a written answer. We're 18 seconds over.

Going on to our two and a half minute round, we have MP Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Ennis, thank you for being here with us today. I also congratulate you on your commitment.

I notice that you are a big fan of astronomy. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada was founded in 1868, over 150 years ago. How extraordinary, despite the adjective “Royal,” which gives me hives. But that is another topic for another day.

I read your annual report. I see that you don't have any members in Quebec. There were 20 or so a few years ago, but since 2018, you no longer have any members from Quebec. I would like to know what caused the loss of those members. Did they leave to join another organization? Is there another explanation?