I had a meeting with our forest companies, and our industry will be meeting with them again tonight in Ottawa. I'm heading home tomorrow night to have a round table meeting with them. We're in an unprecedented emergency situation.
You're absolutely right. We have about a one- to two-year window where we can salvage the wood that's out there and there is still a marketable component to it or we can use it.
I want to go back to a comment we had when we were in the Miramichi. We had comments at our committee about the clear-cutting and logging practices that were going on and how that was having a devastating impact on the fishing in those areas, and indeed the rivers in the Miramichi.
This is no different. This is absolute devastation, without a doubt. There is no root structure to hold the water. We will see more landslides, more instability of our grounds.
The other thing is that the fires were so hot and so deep, they were burning a crust. There would be a crust of about six to eight inches, and underneath about four to five feet of embers, rock, empty space that had burnt. You have that instability of the land there.
I would appreciate it if the committee would be willing to consider this. This is something that we need to do. It's something that I'll be challenging our ministerial colleagues on as well, to look at immediate action and ways that we can move things forward. I think our committee can take a leadership role on this.