Science and Research Committee on Feb. 14th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 30 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'd 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 participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

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

We have two groups presenting today. We have Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Parks Canada. Each group will have five minutes to address the committee.

Presenters, please watch for a signal from me once we get down to your final 30 seconds.

Opening up for today, we will have Environment and Climate Change Canada for five minutes.

[Dr. Shawn Marshall, Departmental Science Adviser, Department of the Environment]

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members. On behalf of Environment and Climate Change Canada, thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. Thanks to the committee for bringing the important topic of citizen science to the table.

Canadians care deeply about the environment—whether it is in terms of the weather, climate, wildlife, air quality, pressure or the state of our rivers, lakes and oceans. This provides many reasons to engage with the public in the environmental sciences.

As I know you have discussed in earlier committee sessions, science programs that engage the public have many benefits. They increase scientific literacy, empower citizens, create awareness and instill a culture of environmental stewardship. They're also a tremendous vehicle for scientific outreach for sharing our science stories. When they are well designed—and, speaking as a scientist, I will say that this is the crux—citizen science programs and observations can inform scientific analyses, create new capacity and contribute to the body of evidence that the country needs in support of environmental management and protection.

We could spend a lot of time defining citizen science. That would probably not be the best use of our time here, but it's important to acknowledge that there are many different ways in which the public contributes to science activities. Successful citizen science programs include a very deliberate design with strict observational protocols and quality controls. There should be very clear pathways for observations to flow into scientific analyses in support of specific questions or knowledge needs. The results also need to flow back to the public, as people want to see the impact and value of their contributions.

The department, ECCC, has been involved in a variety of citizen science programs for decades now. Some of these programs are our own initiatives, but others are led externally. Through them our scientists engage and sometimes support the development of protocols, contribute to the data and take advantage of the data that's available.

One example is an extremely successful wildlife monitoring program called the North American breeding bird survey. This is long-term bird monitoring that ECCC coleads with the U.S., which taps into the enthusiasm and skills of expert birders. These observations have been foundational to our understanding of bird population trends, ecosystem health and impacts of climate change.

Another example, which I think most of the members are familiar with, is the CABIN program, the Canadian aquatic biomonitoring network, which targets aquatic ecosystem health. We're very happy to speak more to these programs in the specific questions the committee may have.

The department also coordinates citizen observations in support of emergency response, through phone lines or online tools, whereby users can call in real-time information on, for instance, dead bird observations or oil spills.

There are many other examples of how ECCC science programs engage in external initiatives, including eBird or iNaturalist, which are some great online platforms that the committee has already heard a little bit about. Our scientists very much tap into these. For example, eBird data mining has been used to assess dead bird observations for early warnings of bird zoonosis.

There are other examples such as SmartICE within our weather observations. The meteorological service of Canada, MSC, integrates precipitation measurements from grassroots volunteer networks, for example, sometimes using instruments and protocols that are provided by the department.

This committee may also wish to consider community-based monitoring and indigenous partnership programs in which communities are active research partners in environmental monitoring. These are being increasingly led by indigenous governments and organizations. These need to be codeveloped to address areas of shared concerns such as water quality, wildlife health or contaminants.

Observations that are gathered through citizen science programs or social media can feed scientific analyses, but we really want to be clear that these represent data points and not the science itself. There's a lot that citizens can contribute to that scientific practice, but putting it to use requires trained scientists to support data curation, protocols, quality checks, processing, modelling, statistical analyses and the background context and existing state of understanding of other sources of data that almost always need to be brought into the interpretation.

There are many different outputs for this kind of work, including scientific papers, but these studies also directly inform policy and legislation. Again, we would be very pleased to expand on this if it would be of interest to the committee.

At ECCC, we see great growing potential within citizen science partnerships. We recognize the value of departmental involvement in these programs and the way they naturally expand the reach, impact and understanding of our science and help build public investment in it.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you so much for that testimony.

Now for an opening statement of five minutes, we have Parks Canada.

[Christine Loth-Bown, Vice-President, External Relations and Visitor Experience, Parks Canada Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good day. Bonjour. Boozhoo.

As the vice-president for external relations and visitor services at Parks Canada, I am pleased to be here to address the committee today on behalf of Parks Canada.

Let me begin by acknowledging that I am on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

The Parks Canada mandate identified in the Parks Canada Agency Act centres on two fundamental principles: to protect and to present Canada's natural and cultural heritage. Today we will summarize how citizen science contributes to achieving this mandate.

Protecting cultural and natural heritage requires a clear understanding of the condition of Parks Canada-managed places and assets, the threats and stressors, and potential mitigation approaches to ensure their resilience, durability and persistence. To this end, we work with indigenous partners, whose knowledge is crucial to a holistic understanding of Canada's heritage.

We benefit from partnerships and collaborations with academic researchers, non-governmental organizations, other levels of government and international partners. At each site we manage, specialists conduct research and gather relevant information to inform management decisions and actions.

We are also well aware of the power of citizen science. Environment and Climate Change Canada's presentation has highlighted the value of citizen science and demonstrated how it can supplement formal research to inform government programs and decisions.

Parks Canada has made use of contributions from citizen science. While we have not yet incorporated citizen science data into our formal monitoring regime, which supports reporting to Parliament and Canadians on the ecological condition of protected areas under our stewardship, we value citizen science and have put in place a number of different national programs that we can speak about later today in the question period.

It's important for us in our national reporting that standards and protocols be applied in a highly consistent manner across Canada, including the most remote parts of the Arctic seldom visited by citizen scientists. Nevertheless, our scientists and monitoring specialists stay abreast of methodological and analytical developments that may allow us to incorporate citizen science data in our reporting regime to Parliament in the future.

In recent years we've seen an increased public interest in conservation and have heard growing concern from Canadians related to the pressing and topical conservation issues of our time, including climate change, biodiversity loss, species at risk and the benefits that healthy ecosystems provide to communities. Canadians express a keen desire to get involved and to help in some way more tangibly than simply becoming more aware. This is where citizen science efforts represent a significant opportunity to involve Canadians in conservation and increase understanding and support.

Our public engagement work through citizen science is in early stages with efforts focused on a selection of initiatives including “Team Up and Clean Up the Shore”. Through this program, visitors and community members participate in Parks Canada-led shore cleanups across Canada. While picking up litter and plastic waste, visitors are also helping to collect data and contribute to marine research. This data will allow Parks Canada scientists to identify sources of marine litter and mitigate them.

“Take a coastie” is a shoreline-monitoring citizen science initiative led by the University of Windsor in partnership with Parks Canada. It's based on the existing CoastSnap program developed at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Capitalizing on the social media popularity of selfie photographs, this program encourages Canadians to take photographs of their coastlines at designated coastal monitoring spots in nine participating Parks Canada locations.

Finally, there is iNaturalist, an international biodiversity database of images and information on natural observations compiled by amateurs, citizen scientists, scientists and naturalists. iNaturalist Canada is led by the Canadian Wildlife Federation along with Parks Canada, NatureServe Canada and the Royal Ontario Museum.

Moving forward, Parks Canada plans to continue expanding this preliminary work and explore ways to foster more collaborations and increase the engagement of Canadians in citizen science initiatives in more Parks Canada places across the country.

Thank you. Meegwetch.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you to both of our witnesses today.

We are going to start the six-minute rounds with Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks very much.

This question is for the Environment Canada people who are on Zoom today. I'm just wondering what role they feel farmers play in citizen science?

What are your comments on that?

[Dr. Shawn Marshall]

A lot of this will be deferred to our colleagues at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, but I would also submit that Aura Pantieras and the Canadian Wildlife Service have some comments to support this.

[Aura Pantieras, Director General, Wildlife Assessment and Information, Department of the Environment]

I think what is probably important to note is that we have about 100,000 Canadians who have contributed data to many of the citizen science surveys, and this could include many of the farmers in the context of monitoring birds. We use bird surveys because they're effective indicators of environmental health. Birds occupy every habitat, and they are relatively easy to survey.

We can expand on some of these findings, which many Canadians over 50 years have contributed to, by tracking and monitoring populations of migratory birds with importance across Canada.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I do have a couple more ag-related questions, but while we're on this topic....

At our last meeting, I brought up a question to the bird folks. I asked them a question with regard to their report from 2019, and you don't have to be familiar with it. You brought up the migratory birds. Many of the rural members of Parliament here in the House of Commons would have wind turbines in their ridings. I do. I have probably close to 400 in my riding due to the fact that it's close to Lake Huron and the strong winds that come off the shoreline.

Does anybody at Environment Canada track how many birds are killed every year because of wind turbines? Does anybody track that? I know they track cats. Somebody was telling me they track cats, how many birds cats kill every year. I know that's a big number, but I'm just wondering, with regard to wind turbines, if anybody tracks that number.

[Dr. Shawn Marshall]

Please go ahead, Aura.

I would also suggest that Jennifer Provencher can probably provide some input on this.

Thank you.

[Aura Pantieras]

I'll note that ECCC is very familiar with this paper. In fact, it was the Canadian Wildlife Service analysis of data obtained from citizen science over the past half-century that was used in the paper published in 2019 in the highly respected international journal Science, which estimated the loss of about 30% of the total bird population in North America.

That means that there are about three billion fewer individual birds in North America than there were in 1970, which is a stark statistic. This information was important in terms of targeting needed urgent conservation attention in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, including targeting the declines of shorebirds, grassland birds and aerial insectivores. I would probably add that it is through the efforts of the North American breeding bird survey's many citizen scientists that we are able to monitor and assess the decline of bird populations across North America.

Over to you, Jennifer.

[Dr. Jennifer Provencher, Research Scientist, Ecosystem Health Research, Ecotoxicology and Wildlife Health Division, Department of the Environment]

Thank you.

I just want to add that, indeed, we do have several programs that work with farmers directly on their lands to support both bird and bat conservation, and this is particularly true in the Prairies where some of the grassland bird species are more in decline.

There are several programs led by the Canadian Wildlife Service, as well as by our science and technology branch researchers, who are working on these species that, in particular, use grasslands and agricultural lands in very specific ways.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but we certainly have several partnerships where we work with the land holders, the farmers, on their lands to track different populations of birds and study in particular how the different types of management of agricultural lands can support biodiversity.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think I have time for a couple of quick questions here for Shawn.

Shawn, I just wonder.... When we're making policy—when I say “we”, I mean the government and the civil servants—say, for example, the 30% reduction in fertilizer emissions, do we consult with the citizen scientist who would be the farmer? Do we consult with that individual and say, “Hey, Jim, do you think you could reasonably reduce your fertilizer use by 30% by such and such a date?” or do we make these targets and then say, “Hey, Jim, here's what you have to do, pal”?

Which one is it? Do we respect the citizen farmer scientist when we are making these targets?

[Dr. Shawn Marshall]

Thank you for this question. It is a good one, of course.

This really gets into the policy realm, which is beyond the purview of the science, the scientists, the science managers and the science advisers here.

We are certainly very interested and active in trying to understand the fertilizer usage in partnership with AAFC colleagues and understanding the impacts on the environment. However, the actual policies of the 30% levels or how this communication works with our partners within the farming community are more at the policy level and not something that we can speak to here.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you so much.

Moving on to the member of Parliament for the Liberals, we have MP Lauzon.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to begin by thanking the witnesses, as well as those who are answering our questions.

The citizen science portal identifies science projects. You mentioned to the committee a number of examples, but on the site, the portal, we see only 55. For example, Abeilles citoyennes and FrogWatch. The site also talks about ice and a number of specimens.

Is the portal a partnership between the departments of industry and the environment? If so, how was it established?

Let's start with the Department of the Environment.

[Dr. Shawn Marshall]

Thank you for this question.

I've perused this portal and find it very useful. I know of many citizen science projects in the country that aren't on the portal, but it captures a number that I was unaware of. It's a valuable portal.

My understanding is that it comes from ISED and that there are some programs in various other departments that are also represented on the portal.

I think I might have to clarify the role that ECCC may have played, or not, in the set-up of this. We can find the response to this and get back to the committee in writing on that specific question of whether this was codeveloped with multiple departments or if it's ISED-led.

The portal includes a couple of projects that we mentioned and several others that the department is involved in, like SmartICE, which we didn't talk about too much. There are many others, some of which are stand-alone NGOs that don't involve federal government partnerships.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Could you send that information to the committee, so we can include it in our report?

In a rural riding like mine, there is no partnership with a college or a university, for instance. Citizens who want to get involved in science or do research are often volunteers, bird or wildlife groups.

What would be the best way to provide citizens with information to turn them into volunteer scientists? Is it also possible to work by sector and reach out to those who would like to do some experimenting in the forest?

[Dr. Shawn Marshall]

Thank you for this question.

I'll add a bit and then I would suggest to the chair that Parks Canada may have a big role to play and may have some comments on this as well.

I think the portal is a good start to this, but a lot of the public might not be aware of it. As we grow citizen science projects, I think it would be very helpful to have communications and outreach strategies to work with schools and with communities to really expand on things. Right now, it's a bit of word of mouth by people that know eBird or iNaturalist and work with each other on this.

I will suggest that we hear a bit from Parks Canada here because it has a very valuable role in communicating and connecting science with the public.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Can Parks Canada officials answer, as well?

[Christine Loth-Bown]

Of course.

Thank you for your question.

I will turn the floor over to my colleague, Manuela Charette, who will be able to talk about our programs.

[Manuela Charette, Director, Brand Experience Branch, Parks Canada Agency]

Thank you, Christine.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As mentioned in the opening statement, our three main national initiatives are based on volunteers. We're promoting these initiatives on our website. There is a very clear call to action to be a volunteer right on our main national website, our Parks Canada website.

We are encouraging people to participate in existing initiatives or specific local initiatives that are offered at different sites. One example I have is a very recent program that we initiated in 2022, as mentioned by Christine in our opening statement: the Team Up and Clean Up the Shore. It's a new initiative that was initiated because Canadians want to be involved and volunteer with Parks Canada. This pilot program is essentially engaging visitors and local communities to clean the shores of specific Parks Canada places. We are now giving shoreline cleanup kits at more than nine Parks Canada locations. We've seen participation by over 250 people, who have literally collected more than 1,800 kilograms of garbage off of the shorelines.

We are promoting these national programs and encouraging volunteering, and some of the local sites are encouraging visitors and communities to participate.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you so much. You had four seconds extra there.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I welcome the witnesses who are joining us.

I will ask my first questions right away. They are for Mr. Marshall.

Mr. Marshall, we have obviously heard from other witnesses during the course of the various studies the committee has done on citizen science. We had Quebec's chief scientist, Rémi Quirion, who came to talk to us about the importance of citizen science in increasing scientific literacy. Of course, we know that there must be engagement in this regard and that the federal government needs to play an important role.

I took a look online at the government's citizen science portal site. You know, the first thing you see, featured, is a very nice project called Notes from Nature - Digitizing Biological Collections in Canada. In brackets, it says it's “in English”. It's in English only.

Mr. Marshall, as science advisor to the Department of the Environment, can you tell us how it is possible for the government of a country with two official languages to create citizen science initiatives in only one of the two official languages?

How is it possible to fully engage francophone communities when you do programs or initiatives that are only available in one of the two official languages?