Thanks.
It's great to see some Parks Canada folks here.
I represent a rural area in central Alberta. I used to represent the riding of Wetaskiwin, which reached out to almost Rocky Mountain House and so on, so I'm fairly familiar with the eastern slopes and the Rocky Mountain national parks. I was a former park warden in Jasper.
I'm very curious to find out some of the places that are being prescribed for burns.
This is not a witch hunt, in any way, shape or form, to place blame. However, if my memory serves me correctly, the original source of the outbreak of the mountain pine beetle, which goes back some 10 or 15 years, was in a provincial park in British Columbia. It might have been Tweedsmuir. Because the decision of the day was to not control but to let processes take their part, the infestation has since spread across British Columbia, in through mountain national parks, and is now wreaking havoc in monoculture stands in the Alberta forests.
Has any significant change been made to Parks Canada's policies that would allow for more proactive, active or earlier intervention in these cases? What happens if the next outbreak happens to be in Riding Mountain National Park? Once it gets done spreading across northern Saskatchewan, the first place in Manitoba might happen to be Riding Mountain National Park. If that's the only place we have to head it off at the pass, is Parks Canada policy going to be strong enough to make sure it doesn't spread to the rest of the forest across northern Manitoba?