Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate this evening. I want to share my time with my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster.
As a British Columbian, let me say that this is an important issue for our province. There is no doubt about the importance of the forest industry to our province. No one has any questions about that. There is no doubt about the importance of tourism to our province. There is no doubt about the spiritual importance of the forest to everyone in British Columbia.
I personally have seen the devastation caused by the infestation of the pine beetle even though it has not spread to my part of British Columbia on the lower mainland. I understand the fear and frustration that this causes for the communities that have been directly affected. I have talked to people about their dread as the infestation spreads across the province.
To see one's livelihood turning brown before one's eyes as the lodgepole pine trees in the area die, to see the timber that is harvested stained blue from the fungus carried by the pine beetle and made less desirable and less saleable, to see logging increase to make use of the dead trees immediately rather than seeing the long term viability of the industry in one's area, bringing into question the future jobs and future survival of one's community: I understand the dread that this causes for people in other parts of British Columbia.
The B.C. government has taken some initiatives on this, that is clear. I am hoping that the federal government will get behind those initiatives and expand them. It needs to get on board.
Tonight I want to talk about the suggestions made by Carole James, the leader of the New Democratic Party in British Columbia. On November 25, Ms. James made an important suggestion about a pine beetle community investment fund for communities in northern British Columbia. This fund would be modelled on the Columbia Basin Trust and the Nechako-Kitimat Development Fund.
Not so long ago, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster and I and our colleagues from the NDP caucus in British Columbia visited the West Kootenays. While we were there, there were important meetings happening around the Columbia Basin Trust. We saw first-hand the importance of that arrangement for those communities and the passion that people felt about the Columbia Basin Trust and how important it was to the future viability of those communities. It is a great model in terms of the ongoing importance of those areas.
The suggestion was that a fund would be established with revenue generated from harvesting operations to control the spread of the pine beetle infestation. The need was to keep the revenue being generated from that harvesting near the affected communities rather than see it end up in the coffers of the provincial and federal governments.
This comes from the increases in the annual allowable cut in the areas around Quesnel, Prince George and the Lakes districts, where the government will collect revenue on an additional 5 million cubic metres this year alone. That is a huge windfall for the government. We and Ms. James want to make sure that the revenue is spent in the those local communities and does not disappear to Victoria.
She proposed that there needed to be community representatives making decisions and setting priorities on how to invest the revenues in their communities. Local people need to be involved directly in setting those priorities so that it is not just people in Victoria or people in Ottawa who do that work. Business, labour, first nations and municipal and regional governments all need to be directly involved--and directly involved locally--in establishing the criteria for their community investment fund on the pine beetle.
The amount of timber harvested in these areas will decline by between 20% and 40% over the next 10 to 15 years because of the extra harvesting that is happening now. As I mentioned earlier, that means the long term viability of communities is put into question. That means the ability for people who live in those areas to count on a future in that same region is being put in jeopardy because the work is being done now and not spread out over a longer period as was expected before this infestation happened.
Prince George city councillor Murray Krause believes that northern communities need to have control of their destiny by stopping the outflow of the wealth from the north. That is a key part of any long term plan for the region.
Councillor Krause strongly believes that local people in his area, in Prince George, need to have a key role in making the decisions about how this crisis is managed and how the future of those communities is developed in light of the infestation.
Nate Bello, the mayor of Quesnel, said:
This initiative recognizes the need to invest in the economic future of those communities directly impacted by the pine beetle infestation, including forestry and pine beetle recovery, transportation, tourism, energy, small business and sustainable economic development.
That is quite the list of important areas that the mayor of Quesnel has identified, but the basic fact is that he, like others, wants to be directly involved in how this crisis is managed and what the future planning and future economic development of his region is going to be. I think he recognizes that what Ms. James has suggested in her initiative around a pine beetle recovery fund goes some way to addressing that hope.
In passing, I remember not so long ago seeing a display of value added wood products made from timber that had been stained by the fungus that is left by the pine beetle. This gives the wood a streak resembling a blue grey kind of stain. It was very interesting to see that an enterprising entrepreneur in the area had actually taken this and tried to turn it to advantage, and use the special qualities of that wood in products that he was hoping to market.
That is the kind of local initiative that we need to support as well. We know and we have heard from other members this evening how the staining of this wood has decreased the value and desirability of the wood. We heard how Japan was no longer interested in the stained wood even though its strength and other qualities were not affected. It is just the cosmetic value of the wood that is affected. Here is an entrepreneur that has taken that head on and made products. He has attempted secondary manufacturing that takes advantage of the staining that has happened to the wood in order to turn the disadvantage into an advantage for British Columbia.
There are significant questions raised by the infestation. The role of fire suppression and how our fire management process has sometimes set us up to undo the natural changes in the forest. Sometimes this has made it even more likely that the pine beetle is going to take hold in an area. Regarding forest management and clear-cutting practices, when we clear-cut a forest and then reforest it, we often plant a single species which ultimately will make the forest more vulnerable to an attack by a pest such as the pine beetle.
Instead of matching the great diversity of the original forest we see the ghetto forest developed by this process. We also need to look at the whole question of climate change and how it affects this whole crisis.