You are currently looking at the entire staff of CoCoRaHS Canada. It's just me working for the organization.
I also have my ECCC contact, Rick Fleetwood, who has been with the organization since it started in Canada. He has been indispensable. Sadly, he retired around October of last year. He has come back twice now on casual contracts, but he is definitely done for good in March. While there is a succession plan, losing someone who has been with the program for so long and has so much knowledge built up from years of experience working with it is really difficult.
When CoCoRaHS first started expanding around 2013, we received a big contract from ECCC, as well as AAFC. That was a five-year contract. That was when there were, I believe, three or four other coordinators across the country who were able to focus in on just Manitoba, just B.C., just the Maritimes and just Ontario. That contract ended in 2018.
In 2020, another contract was signed with ECCC, but for substantially less. We haven't been able to build that infrastructure back up, which definitely has had an impact on our ability to expand in certain regions.
Rick has been great because he's been able to connect me with different branches of the government that are interested in applying the program. For example, we're currently in talks with the Nunavut government on expanding the program there. We currently only have one observer there and with this program, we're looking to get anywhere from 12 to 24 observers, which is wonderful. I don't think I would have been able to do that without Rick's connections because Nunavut is such a different culture. There are language barriers sometimes.
In order to truly expand and strengthen the network, we need to have people across the country on the inside helping us out.