Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member for Cariboo--Chilcotin for bringing forward this motion.
My experience and knowledge of the mountain pine beetle is somewhat limited. I am speaking on behalf of my colleague from the South Shore who certainly has much more knowledge of this infestation than I do. As a member of the natural resources committee, he has flown over the area. He recognizes the vast devastation and the concern that is demonstrated by the member who represents that area.
I congratulate the member. We will support his request for unanimous consent to put the motion to a vote in the House. I suspect members opposite would also agree with that. The motion certainly is not terribly onerous. It speaks very well of the co-operation between the federal government and the provincial government, which I commonly refer to as co-operative federalism. I suspect with that co-operative federalism members on the government side would be most supportive of the vote going forward.
When the member rose in defence of his motion he talked about the natural disaster aid that was brought forward in other natural disaster incidents that have happened over the past years and which will continue to happen over the years in the not too distant future. We have seen changes in weather patterns. The member referred to the floods in the Saguenay. He referred to the floods in the Red River Valley, of which I am much more knowledgeable than I am of the mountain pine beetle. He referred to ice storms. Although he did not, he should have referred to the excess moisture we received in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The federal government unfortunately did not deal with each and everyone of those natural disasters equitably. In some cases it put forward ad hoc programs which dealt with one natural disaster differently than other natural disasters. I have always stood in the House and suggested that in order to have some consistency in a natural disaster plan we need a federal government that accepts the fact that there should be a natural disaster program for any type of natural disaster and that natural disasters should be dealt with equally from province to province and region to region.
This is a prime example of a natural disaster. It is not man-made. It is happening because of a natural predicament with respect to weather. It is not something that B.C. wished upon itself. In fact B.C. is trying to deal with it simply because of the natural disaster component. I would love to move all that timber to Manitoba if all that was needed was a temperature of minus 40 degrees. We could certainly make our minus 40 degrees days available to B.C. but it is not quite that simple. A natural disaster plan is something the government should look at so that there is consistency and equitability when dealing with a particular disaster.
The member who rose on behalf of the government perhaps does not see the same urgency as the member who represents the area sees. Livelihoods are being affected. Communities are being affected. This is a very serious circumstance and it has to be dealt with.
The only way the government can deal with it is to work together with the province. I do not see any co-operative federalism in any number of issues, particularly those of agriculture and natural disasters. I do not see this issue as being any different. Certainly there is no understanding of a workability between the province and the federal government.
What should happen? The federal government should help the industry try to harvest the infested trees to help eradicate the beetle. That is pretty simple. The federal government should help to harvest the trees.
We have just been told by the member opposite that there is no such thing as eradication so why should we even attempt to eradicate? He says it is impossible, that it is a normal occurrence and therefore we should not even try to fix the problem because for heaven's sake we know we cannot eradicate. However if the federal government really wanted to, we could try to help eradicate that beetle .
What else should happen? The federal government should find alternate markets. The U.S. is the primary market source. If we can harvest this and get rid of the beetles in certain areas, not eradicate them, because we know that cannot happen, heaven forbid, we can try to control it. Then when we have all this wood, we should try to market it, but we already know that the government has not done a real good job on the softwood lumber. Therefore why would it stand up now and take responsibility for trying to market another product that will come from the harvesting of this wood that is being infested by beetles? Why would it do that when it cannot do the job that it has been asked to do on behalf of British Columbians now with the lumber market?
What else should the government do? It should help to find short term solutions for the added volume of wood on the market from the forced harvest of infested woods, solutions in other marketplaces outside the U.S. It should be looking at others, but has it been doing that? No. It is easier to stand back and not do much of anything.
What are the problems encountered in trying to eradicate the mountain pine beetle? The member spoke very eloquently about some of those areas. I will try to repeat some of that. First, the federal government owns a portion of the forest resource lands in British Columbia. If it is not prepared to put in the mitigating circumstances, that will cause problems, because the beetle will infest those areas. If the government is not prepared to control it in its own areas, it will not be controlled.
The forest industry lacks mill capacity to deal with the infested timber if it is harvested. It is not a government responsibility, but logically it could be one of the areas that the federal government looks at to try to help the situation as opposed to hindering it. The province lacks the capability to harvest the infested lumber. Just maybe the federal government could assist in that area as well. Maybe it could put some money into the situation instead of simply saying it is not the government's problem, that it will abdicate its responsibility and walk away from this because it is the problem of the province of British Columbia.
There are environmental concerns about the increased allowable cut. There is no question about that. That is an issue. We heard the member from the NDP speak to the environmental issues, not only the issue of the cutting of the lumber itself but also the climate issues that we are dealing with right now with Kyoto.
This is a very simple request from a province to a federal government: help us control the infestation. Heaven forbid, we cannot eradicate it, but help us control a very, very serious infestation. We have some experience. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had an infestation and they did put into place programs that controlled the infestation at that time, which was the spruce budworm. It was done locally in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and in my opinion it can be done in British Columbia, but what do the Liberals do? They say they are already working. Heaven forbid, they do not want us to bother them with votes. They say that they have only 1% of the forest lands in British Columbia and that this is really the responsibility of British Columbia.
The member for Cariboo--Chilcotin made a great analogy when he talked about the forest fires and how the circumstances are the same with the pine beetle. That is an interesting analogy, because it is my understanding that for forest fires the federal government does have a sliding scale compensation package with the provinces. I know that because we have forest fires in northern Manitoba and the federal government pays a certain share of the cost of fighting those forest fires, because forests are a natural national resource. The same should be set out right now in British Columbia for the cost of fighting the pine beetle. Why can the federal government not come up with a manageable contribution to its responsibility for this natural resource?
I hope beyond hope that the government will see that it cannot simply abdicate its responsibilities for all natural resources. It abdicated its responsibility in agriculture. It abdicated its responsibility in the fishery. Now it seems to want to abdicate its responsibility in forestry. Good for the government, but I think it is time it stood up and took responsibility. This is one very simple way to do that. We should have a vote on the motion and have the government be part of the solution instead of always being part of the problem.