Science and Research committee  Thank you very much. I can't talk about the loss of these three billion birds without getting shivers. We aren't talking about Jacques Cartier's day; we are talking about 1970. Some of us were here then. In not such a very long time, we have lost nearly a third of our birds. So we have to act.

Science and Research committee  That's good timing, because...

Science and Research committee  I can maybe start with one example really quickly. You mentioned grassland birds. They are among the birds that are declining the fastest, so once we know that, and we know that again largely because of citizen science, we know that grassland birds are declining so we focus our conservation efforts there.

Science and Research committee  It's a good question. It connects back to Mr. Lobb's question about what drives our decisions about what we're going to do with all of this citizen science data, I think, at the end of the day, our organization exists to conserve birds and to recover these birds that are part of this biodiversity collapse.

Science and Research committee  Thank you very much for your question. It's very interesting. We believe that citizen science, participatory science, is science. The federal government has a mandate to promote science among the public, in particular through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Science and Research committee  In this case, there is a lot of talk about digital infrastructure to support these programs. To give you an example, we are currently finalizing a platform that we will be able to use to provide training for a very large number of volunteers at the same time. It is a digital platform.

Science and Research committee  I believe we have to go out and meet the public. At Birds Canada, we always say that birdwatching has to be accessible to everyone. There are several ways to approach the subject, but ultimately it comes down to reducing barriers to access. So we have to figure out what to do in order to reduce those barriers, particularly at sites managed by the Government of Canada.

Science and Research committee  We know that young people are amazingly interested. When we tell you about the people who work with us to expand participatory science, we include young people. I can tell you about Gavin, a young boy we discovered in Alberta when he was eight years old and taking part in his very first Christmas bird count.

Science and Research committee  I would just add that that's what we're getting at in our first recommendation when we speak of supporting the backbone infrastructures. Just to give you an example, when these programs are successful and they're scaled, we're now talking about potentially thousands of Canadians who are participating in these programs.

Science and Research committee  Sure. We're managing an overall budget of about $9 million at Birds Canada—and growing. We have six program areas. The program area where most of our citizen science work happens is called Assessing the State of Canada's Birds. That program area runs about $2 million to $2.5 million a year.

Science and Research committee  Those are vital contributions, and while I can't vouch for the fact that this would be the latest number, I would point out that the last I've seen is somewhere to the tune of four per cent. That's the slice of the pie that the environmental charitable sector receives out of all donations.

Science and Research committee  Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you very much for inviting us to this meeting. We were very pleased to accept. My name is Patrick Nadeau. I am the president and chief executive officer of Birds Canada. With me today is Jody Allair, our director of citizen science and community engagement.