Science and Research Committee on Feb. 9th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

I call this meeting to order.

I welcome you to meeting number 29 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, September 26, 2022, we are continuing our study on citizen scientists.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those taking part by video conference, click on your microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I will do my best to keep everyone on time. If you watch—especially the presenters at the end of their five-minute slots—and see that I'm giving you the speed-up signal, please wrap it up. I mean no disrespect, but we need to get through all our witnesses and questions today.

In accordance with our routine motion, I inform the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of this meeting.

I would now welcome our guests to our committee. We'll start with opening statements from Dr. Moran for five minutes.

Dr. Moran, you have the floor.

[Dr. Kathryn Moran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ocean Networks Canada]

Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm the president and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada, and I'll describe it as ONC throughout.

We operate one of Canada's largest research facilities funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Government of Canada.

We operate these world-leading cabled ocean observatories in Canada's Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans. These observatories collect and deliver real-time ocean data for science, society and industry. Through our data system, Oceans 3.0, data are collected in all forms, are quality assured and archived and are made openly available.

In 17 years of operations, ONC has grown to support more than 22,000 users from Canada and around the world. We currently host 12,000 sensors, many of which are Canadian made, and we currently store over 1.2 petabytes of data, a vast archive, which is an ocean resource.

Canada's coastline at 250,000 kilometres is the world's longest. If outstretched, it would circle the earth's equator over six times. Given this scale, the unprecedented threats from climate change and the ocean's particular role in regulating our climate in making the earth habitable, citizen scientists are helping to fill a gap that is critical for understanding our changing ocean, its impacts and ways to mitigate and adapt to these impacts.

ONC's citizen science programs launched in 2012 when we deployed our first cabled observatory in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. While engaging with the community to design this first of its kind observatory, ONC learned that the community wanted real-time information particularly about the thickness of the sea ice to ensure their safety, as climate change had made travelling on the ice risky and unpredictable. Therefore, we included a sea ice profiler instrument to the observatory. That first year we were all keen to learn if this observatory would withstand the harsh Arctic environment. I'm pleased to say that it did, and it continues to this day. From that first day, their observatory provides sea ice thickness data to the community in real time. The data from all the instruments are of particular interest to the community's youth, who regularly engage with ONC science to analyze them and understand their changing ocean front yard.

The Cambridge Bay community observatory's success set ONC on a path to work with other coastal communities and initiated citizen science in many other locations. Citizens make excellent scientists because they understand that their data are beneficial to local and sometimes national decision making. To complement community observatories, ONC developed the community fishers program which puts science instruments in the hands of citizens. Many local boat operators, mariners and volunteer citizens regularly collect ocean data to help inform responsible ocean management. ONC now supports 37 community observatories and citizen science programs, mainly with indigenous partners, on all three of our coasts. We anticipate these numbers will continue to grow.

These localized observing systems complement existing regional and global marine research activities, while also providing education, training and outreach opportunities for many coastal dwellers, including for indigenous businesses, communities and youth.

There are key success factors that demonstrate the value of these programs. Clear partnership roles and understanding communities' unique needs are, without a doubt, the foundation to this success. Respecting indigenous data sovereignty and implementing the ownership, control, access and possession, or OCAP, principles are another. The data must be provided openly to the local communities for easy retrieval and be of the highest quality. It is also important to provide support to citizens wishing to participate. In our case, the support might include funding for a community boat to collect the data or compensate a dedicated community participant for their precious time.

ONC has found that citizen scientists are a key stakeholder group that fills gaps in our ocean knowledge. Programs like the oceans protection plan and the salmon restoration and innovation fund, and now Canada's ocean conservation goals, like 30 by 2030, would see great benefit from an expansion of citizen science where many indigenous communities are truly the stewards of Canada's coastline. Such programs continue to contribute to Canada's leadership in ocean science and provides critical information for combatting the impacts of climate change on all three coasts.

From just coming from IMPAC5, I can say that I see Canada as truly leading the world in indigenous citizen science.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you, Dr. Moran. Thank you for keeping it within five minutes.

Now we'll go to Mr. Hwang for five minutes.

[Jason Hwang, Vice-President, Salmon, Pacific Salmon Foundation]

Hi, everyone, and good morning. My name is Jason Hwang, and I'm here in my role as vice-president of salmon programs with the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear.

Before joining the Pacific Salmon Foundation four years ago, I spent 25 years working with DFO. From then until now, I've worked with and supported citizen scientists, and I have a deep respect and appreciation for the work they do.

Here's the main point I want to highlight for you today: Canada is missing out on huge, untapped potential to engage citizen scientists, especially in areas where there's a natural public interest in a subject. To explain this, let me turn to an example of Canada's engaging the capacity and talent of our communities, the sport of hockey.

Why is Canada so good at hockey? It's because we have the best players and the best coaches. Where do they come from? They come from our community hockey programs. Every hockey player in Canada was once a community hockey player and so was every coach. Hockey is more than just the players who play in the NHL; it's about the entire network of volunteers, amateurs and professionals who all play a part in making Canada the best of the best.

We can look at science in a similar way. We have professionals at universities and in government agencies, but we also have non-professionals in our communities who can be important parts of a broader network and system that can do more work, study more things and solve more problems than the professionals can on their own. Canada is a vast country, and professionals can't be everywhere doing everything, but we do have citizens out there who are well placed to do their part. Our hockey teams are great because of significant community engagement and support; we can do something similar when it comes to science.

How do we support and grow citizen science capacity in Canada?

First, we need a strategy and a system, not ad hoc ideas or funding that we throw out there and hope for something good. Second, we need to let people know how they can help. We need to give them a bit of guidance and direction. Third, we need their work to turn into something useful. Where does it go? How can it be used? Fourth, we need to show people that the work is important, valued and appreciated. We need to show up, see what they're doing and say thank you.

The federal government is generally not all that well placed to directly engage citizen scientists, but the federal government can use bridging organizations to help support more citizen science work. As an example, at the Pacific Salmon Foundation, we have a 35-year history of working with federal and provincial governments, first nations organizations and community groups. We have administrative, scientific and technical capacity that can help to connect federal funding and priorities to programs of high impact and high benefit to the community interests. For every dollar that's put into these projects, about $7 in value is created through the leveraged efforts of community volunteers.

Here's an example from our work of the kinds of things that can happen when we engage citizen scientists. We're partnering with the Dr. Francis Juanes lab at the University of Victoria on an adult salmon diet study, and here's how it works. When citizen science volunteer anglers catch a salmon, they send the salmon’s stomach to researchers at the university, where the contents are sorted and identified. The results give us a picture of what the salmon are feeding on throughout the seasons as well as the size and type of forage fish that are present in those locations.

Since sample collection is undertaken voluntarily from anglers located all over the area, the program has proven to be a cost-effective way to monitor and track changes in forage fish populations in the Salish Sea. From a research and conservation perspective, the results are relevant to a better understanding of forage fish stocks, which are essential food sources for our wild salmon. The program is also valuable because it engages the recreational fishing community and increases their understanding and enthusiasm for the science. It's a wonderful project, and it's providing data that is not available via typical science sources.

I'd like to leave you with a quote from Roméo LeBlanc in 1978 when he was the minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He was speaking about the new DFO salmon enhancement program. Here's what he said:

The Enhancement Program's real longterm success will be measured not so much by the miles of spawning channel as by the respect of generation after generation visiting these channels, and salmon streams, and rivers.... [T]he real investment of the Salmonid Enhancement Program is in—not for, but in—the people of British Columbia.

With this as inspiration, if we develop strategies and systems to support citizen science, we will be able to engage and activate enormous untapped capacity that exists across the country, and we will be able to do more work, study more things and solve more problems.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you, Mr. Hwang.

Now we will move to the six-minute question round of our committee.

We're going to start with the Conservatives and Mr. Soroka.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

I'll start off with Dr. Moran.

You said that you have citizen scientists who are quite concerned about the thickness of ice. That's great in one area, but how challenging is it to get all other partners on board to become citizen scientists, with the vast kilometres of our shoreline?

[Dr. Kathryn Moran]

Every community is different. That's what we've found. It's really about ensuring that we have rich dialogue with each of the communities. Each community has different priorities.

For example, some communities here on the west coast of British Columbia are keenly interested in understanding ship noise and how it might impact their fishing grounds or their understanding of the whale populations offshore.

We tailor the ways that we collect data with these partners in a way that meets those needs. Of course, it really does take true discussion to actually get to the key need in each of these communities.

I have to say that one overriding issue that seems to be there for all is the fact that most communities want their youth to be part of understanding science, technology, engineering and math. That seems to be universal across all of the communities.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you for that.

As you said, you have 37 communities. With the vast kilometres of shoreline we have, is that a good representation or would you like to see more?

Where more population exists, it's easier to find scientists. Where there's less, it's very difficult, I'm sure.

I was wondering how much more. Is that an appropriate amount?

[Dr. Kathryn Moran]

No, we need many more, of course.

As I mentioned, you need to ensure that the data collected are of a high scientific value, as Jason just talked about. At Ocean Networks Canada, we have built a back end on the data side to be robust enough to actually expand tremendously.

We are ready to expand. We have been in discussions with Fisheries and Oceans Canada about the potential to do that.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Do you think, then, in these remote areas...? You mentioned that one of the sensors you were using survived the winter and that this was great.

Is it a valid type of system to continually use the sensors and monitoring or do you actually need boots on the ground, so to speak?

[Dr. Kathryn Moran]

We do have to have some training, of course, but the community fishers.... Actually, one reason we started community fishers was the Pacific Salmon Foundation's hallmark approach to citizen science. It's really putting an instrument in the hands of these communities. They gather data in their own way, so it really is pretty seamless.

Some communities on the B.C. coast have their own boats. In the Arctic, during the winter, they drill holes in the ice and put the sensors through the ice. The sensor systems have proven to be pretty robust.

There is such keen interest in communities collecting their own data. I think it has the potential to grow almost seamlessly, with a modest amount of funding, as has already been described.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you for that, Dr. Moran.

Mr. Hwang, you said that we have a lot of citizen scientists out there in the wings not even knowing they're citizen scientists. I love the fact that you said funding isn't the save-all grace.

Really, how do you engage them better to make sure their information will be valid and everything?

[Jason Hwang]

It's a big question, but I'll maybe turn some focus, at least from my perspective, to how the federal government entities can help with that. I would almost look at the federal government entities as really well placed to be the guides and supporters looking at how you can match federal priorities and federal funding programs to the possibility and capacity that can be leveraged by the vast network of citizen scientists, people who are out there.

As an example, if I went out in my local stream and I was really interested in looking after it, and I had a temperature monitor—maybe I just had a thermometer—and I went every day and I wrote down the temperature of the stream, we know that the temperature of streams is changing with climate change. It's important information for knowing how good the water quality and the fish habitat might be to support our fish. But if all I do is write that down in my notebook, take it back and put it on a shelf and tell somebody I'm doing it, it doesn't do anything.

But if we can take that information, plug it into a network and get it to people who can use it to make better decisions, better investments or better choices, it can support management and conservation, and it doesn't cost anything. I'm happy to drive out or walk past my local stream every day and work with my neighbours and say, “We'd better send this information to somebody”.

Right now, we're not organized. We have some programs—the work that Dr. Moran was just speaking of as an example—that have been there for some time and are really good, but it's a fraction of what is possible. If we start to look at it like we look at hockey, we've got lots of hockey going out there, and it feeds up to a great system, but someone has to organize it. I think helping to organize it and then supporting it for the long term—not providing a million dollars and a new program, thinking it's just great, and then going away.... It's just about a standard and providing little bit of support and consistency, and organizing it, and that will go a long way.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you so much for that testimony.

We're now moving on to the Liberal member of Parliament, Madam Diab.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both of our witnesses for appearing today to enrich our conversation on citizen science and give us important information that can assist us as parliamentarians.

Ms. Moran, you are the president and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada. I come from Nova Scotia, which has “Canada's ocean playground” on our provincial vehicle licence plates, so the ocean is a very important element as an economic driver, but also for many other reasons in Nova Scotia as well, because we're surrounded by four major bodies of water.

A question for you is how do you recruit citizen scientists?

[Dr. Kathryn Moran]

The way that Ocean Networks Canada is working is to really engage with indigenous communities. In fact, we have a partnership with the Maritimes tribal council in Nova Scotia. There's a keen interest in indigenous communities to be those coastal stewards. That's our primary focus at this time because of the fact that among the small coastal communities in the country many are indigenous. That's the main way we do it.

The other way that we do it is through education programs in schools. That happens by basically bringing teachers together to explain how older youth can become part of citizen scientist programs. Once they have that way of doing things, they can typically stick with it.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Tell me a little bit more about the contribution of the indigenous citizen scientists. In what projects are they involved?

[Dr. Kathryn Moran]

The program that we have is called community fishers. We provide a standard oceanographic instrument to a community. We provide training. Then that community, usually with leaders and youth together, set out to capture data, typically on a weekly basis, using their own boats, or in the Arctic, for example, they go out on the ice and drill a hole. These are basically instruments that you lower down through the water column and then bring them back up. You're collecting data on a regular basis at the same locations that are important to these communities. The important part, and I think Jason mentioned this, is to have some way to share those data.

Ocean Networks Canada has one of the best ocean sensor data systems in the world. All the data are readily moved from the instrument to basically a small computer, and then when the community member gets back to Internet at some location, it uploads directly to our data management system where we do all the QA/QC. By the time they get home, the data are available to them. Those are critically important elements because when the community knows they're collecting data of high quality and it's available to them right away, it is a win-win-win, and it's those pieces that are critically important to a successful citizen science program.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I think a couple of days ago Minister Murray announced major funding over five years for Oceans Networks Canada to enhance a world-class ocean monitoring system. I'm sure you're aware of that, but can you tell me how these funds will be spent and whether new citizen science projects are being considered?

[Dr. Kathryn Moran]

I'll answer your second question first. Yes, that's our intention—to expand citizen science programs, particularly the community fishers program, for the purpose of growing the indigenous coastal communities to be truly the stewards of our coastline. That is through the marine protected area efforts that are so ambitious and wonderful, which the federal government has implemented to have 30% by 2030.

In terms of the funding that was announced by Minister Murray—and I was so delighted to be there—we're doing many things. In addition to citizen science programs and coastal observatories with communities, we operate large ocean infrastructure to monitor the ocean for many different things.

For the purposes of Fisheries and Oceans Canada's priorities, it's really understanding ocean currents basically as part of improving marine safety and its new response. It's monitoring all aspects of where we have sensor systems to understand the impact of climate change on our oceans and to also then collect data associated with ocean noise, which has a negative impact on marine mammals. Having real-time ocean noise data—and some of the coastal communities are collecting this data as well—helps us to mitigate the impact on marine mammals.

Those are examples of the many things we're doing with the funding we have—which we're so grateful for—and the benefits of not only scientific research but also the efforts that are a priority for the Government of Canada.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

Mr. Hwang, you compared citizen science to hockey. Obviously, Canada is known very much for hockey. How can we get more citizens more interested in citizen science? In particular, you talked about salmon, but it could be in anything. You actually talked a lot about that. Is there anything more you can give us? How can the government or parliamentarians help you?

I'm being told I'm over my time, but I'm hoping someone else will get back to that.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

That or a written response to the question would be appreciated. We are 31 seconds over time on that one, but that's all right.

Moving on to the next round, we have, from the Bloc, MP Blanchette.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome the witnesses who are joining us for today's study.

My first question is for Jason Hwang from the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

Mr. Huang, your organization was created in 1987 and has been in existence for over 30 years. Certainly, I want to recognize the importance you place on preserving our ecosystems and our species. Of course, pacific salmon are part of that. I note that you have a lot of citizen science programs in the Strait of Georgia and volunteers collect data and samples there.

I also notice that you receive quite a bit of money from the federal government. Can you tell us approximately how much funding the federal government contributes to your organization's mission?

[Jason Hwang]

While I didn't organize myself to bring that specific detail to committee today, I could certainly get back to committee on that in writing. I would frame it as that there are two kinds of funding we tend to receive from the federal government.

We apply for grants through large federal funding programs, like the B.C. salmon restoration and innovation fund, which is something that I think is in year three or four now. It's a significant program jointly run by the federal and provincial governments.

But there are also a couple of things from which our organization specifically receives support. One of the ways we get funding from the federal government is through an agreement whereby, when a fisher person goes fishing in the ocean and they want to catch a salmon, they have to buy a salmon conservation stamp that costs a little bit more—

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

That partially answers my question, Mr. Hwang.

I can help you a bit. Your budget is $11 million, which is not a trifling amount, 49 per cent of which comes from government support, including the federal funding.

I noticed that you also have a very lovely website. What struck me is that your website is only available in English. I'm wondering how you believe you are going to be able to mobilize the public. To my knowledge, there are francophone communities in British Columbia. What is the explanation for your communications, your reports and your data, and your website, being entirely or solely in English?

Are you not required to have them in French?

You can receive money from the federal government, but you can't communicate in both official languages.