Evidence of meeting #30 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Corey Tochor
I'm going to pause this for a second. We are having some audio problems.
Colleagues, I think it may have ceased. We're going to keep going and see how it turns out.
MP Soroka, I put 10 seconds back on the clock. You have three minutes and 40 seconds.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
If she can't finish answering that question, can it be in a written submission, please?
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Corey Tochor
Absolutely. The witness will provide a written submission to Mr. Soroka's question.
Carry on.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you.
My other question is a follow-up.
With the information on the bird deaths in Canada and the U.S.—a study's being done there—do we collaborate with any other countries or coordinate information to see if other countries with wind turbines also are experiencing the same mortality rate? Is that possible or not? That's from wind turbines.
Mr. Marshall...?
Departmental Science Adviser, Department of the Environment
Yes, I'm just trying behind the scenes to see whether Aura or Jennifer would be best positioned to address that.
All of our science is international. We're working with colleagues on issues like wind turbine mortality. As an international science community, I don't know if there are specific partnerships that either Jennifer or Aura can speak to, or if we will need to get back with a written response.
Jennifer has her hand up.
Research Scientist, Ecosystem Health Research, Ecotoxicology and Wildlife Health Division, Department of the Environment
I can say that we work on bird mortality via turbines, fisheries bycatch or bird flu with multiple partners. One of those is the trilateral between Canada, U.S. and Mexico. There's a migratory bird table. Much of our work is also done at the Arctic Council level. You can imagine the eight Arctic states.
We share bird populations with the globe. We work with several different organizations to ensure that we are coordinated and creating comparable science and comparable citizen science initiatives across those bird landscapes in order to get the best estimate that we can.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
I have a follow-up question.
When it comes to bird mortality from buildings, windows and even stray cats, is that classified as a climate crisis area or a man-made structures area? How is that defined for bird mortality?
Departmental Science Adviser, Department of the Environment
Thank you. It's a good question.
It is separately categorized and there is work to break out wind turbine versus building versus cat versus maybe the more indirect effects of climate change and habitat change.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Do we have that kind of information, like I said, from other countries in the world to see if we're on the same wave or same level of bird deaths, or is that not coordinated?
Departmental Science Adviser, Department of the Environment
There's certainly a lot of global literature on this and various assessments, including the biodiversity assessment reports. I don't know, in terms of mortality in Canada versus other countries if that's something that anyone—maybe Jennifer—can speak to, or if this is something we should return to you.
Aura, do you have some thoughts on this?
Director General, Wildlife Assessment and Information, Department of the Environment
Yes, I would emphasize that there is coordinated work within North America and South America, I would say, so throughout the Americas. There is research and evidence that highlights that the mortality of birds related to wind turbines is relatively small compared to windows, cats and other human anthropogenic activities.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
It's relatively small compared to the number of wind turbines that we have right now, but when we continue to increase the number of wind turbines it is a factor in the bird populations. That's something to consider.
I'll move on to Parks Canada with the iNaturalist app. I think that's quite interesting. It's the first time I've seen this app so I don't know much about it.
Does this app just picture relate it and then automatically document it, or do people have to put in information on what they think a species or a plant is in order to get it identified?
Vice-President, External Relations and Visitor Experience, Parks Canada Agency
I will turn it to my colleague, Stephen, to speak more about the iNaturalist program.
Stephen McCanny Manager, Ecosystem Science Laboratory, Parks Canada Agency
It's very simple. There's posting as in a normal social media application, but you do get to put in a candidate name for the species. That is checked by experts. We have both raw data and data that is verified.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Corey Tochor
Thank you so much for that. We're out of time.
Now we move on to MP Bradford for five minutes.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses today.
Mr. Marshall, I was wondering: How can support for citizen scientists and citizen science initiatives be embedded into the departmental processes to ensure ongoing support in maintaining institutional knowledge?
Departmental Science Adviser, Department of the Environment
In a sense it is embedded already in that we're using a lot of citizen science through both our own programs that we coordinate and through relatively formal partnerships right through to places where we're data mining but also feeding back on protocols. I think it's a place where there are a lot of horizons that are probably worth thinking about hard in terms of going forward.
With the power of social media and data mining and artificial intelligence, it's worth having a strategy of how best to work with citizen science and expand research and science capacity in this area. It's a pretty active area of concern. It's already very much built into some of our science programs. It's something that is likely to grow going forward.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you.
When we heard from Dr. Mona Nemer, she testified that the knowledge gathered by the indigenous communities belongs to the indigenous communities. They are the holders of the information.
Do we have that in your database at all? Do we get their permission so that we can utilize that?
Departmental Science Adviser, Department of the Environment
I'll have a couple of opening comments, and then I'll pass it on to Jennifer for input on this as well.
This is something that's very important to respect. In general, where we have indigenous partnerships, they do own the data. It's not going to be in our databases or publicly available except with their explicit, active ongoing permission. The default is that they have the ownership. That might get waived in certain cases, like the SIKU app, which we've already heard about, or some of the SmartICE programs where there are partnerships and they are very happy to share that information on sea ice thickness or whatever the observations might be. But it needs to come from those indigenous partners.
Jennifer, did you want to add on that?
Research Scientist, Ecosystem Health Research, Ecotoxicology and Wildlife Health Division, Department of the Environment
Yes. It's a very important topic.
I would just echo what Mr. Marshall said. It's case by case. There are certainly several applications where that indigenous knowledge through those applications is available and public. When we have more specific codesigned programs, we strive to follow the OCAP principles so that the indigenous partners, when sharing that knowledge, can be involved in where that data goes, how it is stored and what it is used for. It is a very case-by-case basis. We take that into consideration when we are codeveloping and co-implementing programs.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you for that answer.
What amount of research funding do you provide annually towards citizen science initiatives, and what proportion of your overall research budget funds citizen science?
I'm directing that question to Dr. Marshall.
Departmental Science Adviser, Department of the Environment
We don't have rolled-up numbers on this, but we have some sense for specific programs. For instance, within CABIN, we've prepared a bit on this.
I might actually turn quickly to Arash Shahsavarani to speak on the financial commitments within the CABIN program, and then we'll go to Aura, with CWS, to speak a bit to finances there.
Dr. Arash Shahsavarani Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Division, Department of the Environment
The CABIN program itself is not necessarily a citizen science program, but because of the engagement there's a component that has that outreach and ensures standardization. We spend about $30,000 out of a $200,000 budget on CABIN annually to contribute towards that engagement, which includes citizen science. That's on average, and that just represents our ability within that $30,000 to do the outreach, to provide training and to ensure the standardization of data that would go into the CABIN database.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
How do you assess the return on investment of funds allocated to citizen science initiatives?