The pine beetle epidemic is proceeding apace. They've been slowed down a little bit by weather. We don't know where they're going to go or how far, because the specialists in this area have been wrong almost every time. The numbers have exploded to such an extent that what is a very small-probability event of a pine beetle's jumping species or moving geographically becomes almost a certainty when you go from millions to billions.
A lot of that wood is good for pulp; a lot is good for bioenergy. There are programs afoot to do that. The difficulty is that as governments create incentives to use it that way, that also creates distortions in the marketplace that aren't always healthy. For a lot of that wood, the economics of transporting it to an energy plant don't make sense, but sometimes you need to just get it out of there.
So there is nothing simple on this, and it's not the sort of thing that's easily amenable to a federal program. Is it hurting us? Yes, it is. Are we trying to cope? Yes, we are. Will it hurt specific towns badly? Yes, it will.
If there's any lesson in it, it's that investments in research on the impacts of climate change on Canadian forests is well worthwhile, and we should increase our money for adaptation research.
The other lesson in it is the sort of research that's done by our innovation institute. Right now they're working quite hard on new ways to use the beetle wood. That kind of investment would be useful too.
Just to go on the record, we're against the beetle.