Mr. Speaker, after years of mine being the pre-eminent voice on softwood lumber issues in the House, after years of me warning the government about the perils that awaited if it signed the softwood lumber agreement, after me warning it about the crisis that would occur once this SLA ran out if it did not act in a much prior way, the government finally got it. I want to congratulate the government for supporting our motion today. It may have been a little slow, but it got there and should be congratulated for that.
Now I would like to ask the government to be just a little bit faster on recognizing the devastation caused by the mountain pine beetle out in British Columbia. Literally tens of thousands of hectares of good softwood lumber are being devastated as we speak because help has not been forthcoming from the government. It has had a formal request for help on this issue from the province of B.C. and it has yet to respond.