Environment committee  I'd like to thank everyone here for the opportunity to speak before the standing committee. The organization really does appreciate your time and your interest in what we have to say. Trout Unlimited Canada, or TUC, is a national not-for-profit conservation organization founded

Environment committee  The goal is watershed protection. That's not always in the cards, so we like to at least have the end goal that the projects we're putting in place, the advocacy we're doing, and the protections we're trying to put in place protect ecological function at the watershed level. That

Environment committee  Our criterion is simple: people who care. That's how it starts. It starts with a phone call. It doesn't get simpler than that, and it doesn't get more complicated than that. We have a team of professionals who go out and assess and who support tens of thousands of volunteers acr

Environment committee  I honestly couldn't tell you, because we just about did away with memberships this past year.

Environment committee  We have supporters. We have volunteers. We're at 10,000 to 20,000 and growing every day. It's constantly ebbing and flowing.

Environment committee  It's good, actually.

Environment committee  We have a lot of partnerships with different provincial agencies and even with federal agencies.

Environment committee  We've been active in advising on changes to the federal Fisheries Act over the last five years, and that's ongoing. We've been active in the comments and revisions to the RFCPP, the funding program. Currently we're working with a number of NGOs. We just came out of two days of

Environment committee  With other NGOs, absolutely, including Ducks Unlimited.

Environment committee  There's Cows and Fish. We probably have about 15 or 20 projects on the ground with them. I know of a couple of projects with Ducks Unlimited in Ontario, where it has done the wetland work and we've done the adjoining stream work, mostly on private lands in that case. We have a

Environment committee  That's a really tough one. We've just launched a new campaign and fund. It's called “Stop the Spread”, and it is raising money to increase education and stop the spread of not only invasives but pathogens as well, in looking at things like VHS and whirling disease.

Environment committee  How do you deal with whirling disease? You can't get rid of it, but you can attempt to stop the spread. The reality with whirling disease is that it's likely in a lot more places than we've looked. Whirling disease requires a very specific set of conditions to express itself. A

Environment committee  The invasive species issue has not been a priority for TUC in the past. It has just come to the forefront for us in, I would say, the last three months. We're starting with education. We're going to be developing cleaning kits for boats and anglers and a variety of other tools.

Environment committee  Do you mean with regard to invasive species or generally?

Environment committee  I'm going to say right now that the increased communication and willingness to hear what the not-for-profits are doing is a massive step, but I think the biggest thing we can do in this country is to recognize that not only is the health of our watersheds paramount in our own hea