The collaboration is key. In my opening remarks, I tried to describe the process. It's been over 20 years of R and D and going from grant to grant. We've been very privileged. In Canada, we have programs like Genome Canada and various programs in Environment and Climate Change Canada that have funded us.
In 2017, my job in the academic sector was to do the science, develop the technology and then see how it was going to be disseminated. WWF Canada came to us with their plans for the watershed reports, and that started the new line of collaboration with Living Lakes and all the groups they collaborate with as well as indigenous communities and various community groups.
From that standpoint, it would be impossible to gather this much data from a vast geographic area, especially for us in Canada, without this type of collaboration.
From the standpoint of the information we are gathering, with the tools that we have and the data that is generated through the samples that our partner is providing, we are getting maybe more than 10 times more data, focusing on macro-invertebrates, currently, because they are the bioindicators. As I mentioned, we are moving quickly.
We have plans with PHAC and CFIA to use the same type of community-based monitoring to tackle some of the emerging zoonotic viruses and vectors and their hosts through this environmental sampling. I think this is just the beginning. I think that this type of program will definitely play an important role for the future of monitoring programs in Canada and internationally.
