Thank you.
Dr. Ballard and all the witnesses, thank you for being here. This is really important work.
I had some first-hand experience in and around the oil sands area and working with the first nations there—the Mikisew Cree, the Athabasca Cree first nation and Métis Local 125. They were doing environmental monitoring on the water and on the land with indigenous community members. The elders were passing along some of the traditions and knowledge they had accumulated.
From talking with them, I can imagine and understand that it must be challenging to keep that traditional knowledge alive. I also bore first-hand witness to just how much it can really enhance our understanding, which I think is a bit limited with western science, although western science has been a dominant paradigm.
Dr. Ballard, it seems to me that indigenous traditional knowledge can really enhance our understanding of what has an impact on the environment. Could you maybe speak to some examples and talk about how that's being integrated across different programs within ECCC?