Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you very much for this invitation to speak today. We really appreciate this opportunity, and we really hope we're going to be of some use today.

My name is Dr. Damien Joly. I'm the CEO of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative. Before I start, I just want to acknowledge that I'm grateful to be a guest on the unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation. I, myself, live, work and play on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island.

The focus of my presentation today is on disease threats that are shared between domestic animals and wildlife. I hope to make the case that our domestic animals share many diseases with wildlife and that surveillance for diseases in wildlife is a critical component of animal biosecurity.

For example, there are 31 federally listed reportable diseases in Canada. These diseases include foot-and-mouth disease, African swine fever, avian influenza and 28 other diseases. Of these 31 reportable diseases, 22 can potentially affect wildlife in Canada, so that's 70% of federally reportable diseases that can pass between wildlife and domestic animals. Clearly, wildlife are an important part of the biosecurity equation.

To further make this point, consider the current epizootic of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Canada. From the first cases in November and December of 2021 in Newfoundland until the end of September of 2023, 7.7 million domestic birds in Canada have been impacted in 320 facilities across the country, in all provinces but for P.E.I. This is a virus that was introduced to Canada from wild birds.

There's no way of really knowing how many wild birds or wild mammals have died of this virus in Canada, but we know it numbers in the many thousands of animals. We do know that the virus has been isolated from over 90 species of wild birds in Canada and 14 wild mammals, including red foxes, skunks, several marine mammals and black bears.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza illustrates my point. This virus is quite capable of jumping back and forth between wildlife and domestic animals, and avian influenza isn't the only pathogen we're worried about. It's this fact that makes surveillance for diseases in wildlife so important to protecting the health of Canadians and our animals.

This is what we do at the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative. We are a collaboration of the five vet schools in Canada, as well as the B.C. Animal Health Centre run by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food. With the support of our federal, provincial and territorial partners, such as Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Parks Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, for over 30 years we've done our best to monitor the health of wildlife populations across Canada to identify, assess and mitigate disease risks.

For example, in fiscal year 2022-23, we conducted disease investigations on over 8,000 wild animals from across Canada, testing for a battery of diseases including avian influenza, bovine tuberculosis and Newcastle disease.

For much of Canada, if a wild animal is found dead and reported, it usually ends up at one of our labs. In collaboration with our federal, provincial and territorial partners, we form an essential component of Canada's wildlife health surveillance system.

Our strength results from this collaborative and decentralized approach. By working together, we can confront issues that are bigger than any one of us could attack alone. By working locally and regionally, we can provide local and regional solutions to local and regional problems but have national coordination.

When you give a presentation, you always want the audience to come away with something—something they can remember. If there's one thing I hope you remember walking out of this talk, it's that it's really important to conduct surveillance of wildlife populations if we want to maintain biosecurity in Canada. We're talking about the same diseases here, and these diseases really don't care which side of the fence an animal is on.

Thank you very much for this opportunity, and I look forward to your questions.

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