Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough has become the latest apologist for the Liberal government. I am sure it will welcome him with open arms.
Obviously he was not listening because I did talk about the requests that the province of B.C. had made to the federal government to assist with its plan to fight the mountain pine beetle. It is a $500 million five year plan that would include salvaging whatever wood is salvageable in that infested area, and cleaning out and trimming old growth pines, which are the most attractive tree for pine beetles.
The federal government has received billions of dollars in tax money from the forest industry over the last several decades. Yet now in a time of need when the forest industry is suffering, workers are out of work and families are suffering, and despite the fact that we have the senior minister from British Columbia here who knows well the beetle infestation problem in British Columbia, the federal government has not lifted a finger to respond to the request that the B.C. government has made for assistance in fighting the mountain pine beetle.
Earlier I talked about the need for the federal government to have people negotiating with the Americans who actually knew what they were talking about and who knew the severity of the crisis that the softwood lumber impasse was causing working Canadians. The member down there did not hear that as well.
I talked about the 30,000 British Columbia forest workers and workers in related industries who are out of work. I talked about the fact that the Minister for International Trade has failed to recognize this problem and has instead simply said that is the way it goes.
There are a number of ways the government could address the problems of rural Canadians. It simply has not done it, and that is too bad.