Natural Resources committee  David can talk to you about the risk analysis we did for the firewood pathway. What did you look at?

Natural Resources committee  We also looked at things such as what existing policies govern the criteria. We looked at public information, whether people are even aware that moving firewood is a bad thing. We're involved in partnerships that are doing just that. How far do people bring firewood, and what's the reason they bring their own firewood?

Natural Resources committee  I think it depends on the species. That document does exist for some species. I don't know that it exists in general for invasive species as a whole. We can certainly get you what we are aware of.

Natural Resources committee  In Ontario, for sure, we have EDDMapS, which provides an interactive map of where the invasive species are. In EDDMapS, you can also see the regulated areas under CFIA's control. That will show you where that species has spread and which areas have been regulated. Depending on the species, I think some of the modelling that has been done by CFS would be able to give a good picture of where it's going.

Natural Resources committee  Sure.

Natural Resources committee  I would think that it would still remain invasive until such point as it doesn't have significant impact on the ecosystem and the economy there. That is the type of criterion we have: the significant impact. If there ever comes a time where the EAB doesn't have a significant impact, or mountain pine beetle going to the east wouldn't have a significant impact, it may be that the range could be extended.

Natural Resources committee  I guess there are examples of where that's not the case, but for our definition, if it goes outside its regular range and it meets the criteria for the impacts, then we consider it to be invasive. If it's already native to the area and it also has a significant impact, such as spruce budworm, we wouldn't consider that to be invasive, because it's within its natural area.

Natural Resources committee  Thunder Bay is a good example of that, where we engaged our network. Within a week of their originally finding EAB in Thunder Bay, we had our network on the ground doing monitoring. They found how many more trees?

Natural Resources committee  I'll use invasive forest pests as an example, since that's why we're here. We have an insect diagnostician on staff at the ISC. If the citizen is out in the environment and find what they think is a potential sighting, we encourage them to report that through the EDDMapS tool. If not, it can come directly to us.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  Exactly.

Natural Resources committee  To do the prevention, do you mean?

Natural Resources committee  I don't know that anyone has actually sat down and done that work, but we would be happy to do it. I don't know. It's hard to say. I think that would have to incorporate research. It would have to incorporate emergency response, and it could incorporate that fund that we're suggesting, which would be there and easily accessible.

Natural Resources committee  The idea around our citizen science network is that we first generate interest. That might be through social media, website usage, or approaching the groups that already have these types of folks in there, naturalist groups and things like that. Once we have an interest and people wanting to learn more, we hold specific training workshops in these communities where people are trying to set up these networks.

Natural Resources committee  There are other citizen science networks or other organizations that run something similar in other provinces, but there's not necessarily one national citizen science network in place. In terms of being able to have a national reporting tool as well for them to be able to report that information, right now, some provinces have online reporting tools.