Madam Chair, currently, there are only two ways to kill this little bug. One is with a prolonged cold snap like the member said and that is what we have been able to rely on in the past. However, with the changing climates, I have not seen a minus 40° spell in the 45 years that I have been in Prince George. I believe the last one was 15 years ago, so that is not perhaps going to happen. We always hope it will.
The other natural way is a massive forest fire. That is my point. Sooner or later one of those will happen. If it is the latter, a forest fire, it means that all the affected pine that we were not able to get at will burn and it will be a complete waste. Sure we are going to have reforestation because the fire explodes the pine cones and we have nature's way of reforesting the woods and the bugs get burnt. That is the costly way of doing it.
We could take some mitigating steps to try and salvage what we can, and have a short, medium and long term approach to it, but it takes money. That is what I have been trying to get the Liberal government to recognize. Right now the only way to kill the bugs is with a cold snap or a fire. Maybe science will come up with some sort of chemical process some day that will stop them from multiplying. However, we must address the damage that is there now. That is what the federal government must recognize. The province cannot do it on its own.
The federal government, as a partner in this country, must recognize the importance of the forest industry in British Columbia, recognize the massive problem that we have there, and recognize that this is indeed a natural disaster, not just something that has just happened. This is a big thing and we need the federal government to remember the billions of dollars that we have sent in tax revenues into the federal coffers. We never asked for a bunch of it back, but once in a while we would like to be recognized when we have a problem.