I would have to answer that from a biodiversity side—and I have Dr. Cannings beside me, I'm sure he would speak up—all native species have a role in our natural ecosystems. Taking any of them out, mosquitoes being the obvious ones that we always complain about, they have a very functional role.... What we're dealing with is that we've seen explosions of some of our forest pests, largely because of... it could be partially the weather but the part we have control over is our forest management, our fire protection. We can change those things to minimize the upscale or the outbreak levels. Our Canadian council has not called for the eradication of any native species.
On October 4th, 2018. See this statement in context.