Mr. Speaker, the pine beetle infestation in British Columbia can easily be classified as a natural disaster. One would think the federal Liberals are concerned about the economic impact on B.C.'s forest industry, which provides thousands of jobs and produces billions of tax revenue for the federal coffers.
The federal Liberals have known about this problem for years now but have done absolutely nothing to help the people of British Columbia in the face of this disaster.
In a recent publication entitled “The State of Canada's Forests” Natural Resources Canada devotes a precious three sentences to the pine beetle disaster out of 112 pages, and even then grossly underestimates the magnitude of the problem.
Today I again call on the federal Liberals to drop their historic disdain for British Columbians and give us some of our forest industry tax dollars back to help us in our time of crisis.