Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important issue this evening. I would like to thank the member for Burnaby—Douglas, both for the skill with which he spoke to the issue a few moments ago and for his generosity in sharing his time with me this evening.
We know that the pine beetle infestation is devastating British Columbia. The latest figures for 2003 indicate that over 100,000 square kilometres of British Columbia are now infested. That means roughly 173 million cubic metres of wood has been affected and has been killed as a result of this infestation. That is the equivalent of 5.2 million homes that could be constructed with the wood.
We are talking about an area equivalent to three-quarters of Sweden. If the pine beetle infestation continues, we are talking about an area the size of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island together that would be devastated.
We are talking about something, the magnitude of which has never been seen in Canadian history. This is the greatest infestation that we have ever had in Canada. It is a matter of tremendous importance for communities in the interior of British Columbia that have seen their lodgepole pine forests and other forests devastated. In fact, the latest figures indicate that we could be talking about 85% of the lodgepole pine forests that will be affected. Obviously, the magnitude of this crisis is significant and the magnitude of the response needs to be significant as well.
As I indicated earlier, the $40 million that the federal government is putting in is not sufficient to handle the magnitude of this crisis, not nearly sufficient to handle the magnitude of the crisis. When we couple it with the cutbacks that have happened at the provincial level, we are talking about a situation where the lack of political action at both the provincial and federal levels is compounding this important crisis and making it much worse.
I would like to mention a report that will be released in a few days by the Sierra Club. It indicates the degree to which cutbacks by the provincial government have had an impact on the pine beetle infestation. The study is done by a former Vancouver Sun forestry reporter, Ben Parfitt. He was assisted by Kerri Garner, a student of environmental studies and geography at the University of Victoria. Certain excerpts were published by Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun last week.
First, they did a study of the cutbacks to the ministry of forestry. The cutbacks indicated that 800 jobs in the ministry of forestry have disappeared over the last three years since Gordon Campbell was elected. Most of those 800 positions which were axed include science, technical research and enforcement staff. We have been talking this evening about the importance that research plays in developing a response to the pine beetle infestation. The B.C. Liberals under Gordon Campbell gutted 800 positions. The newspaper report stated:
--the authors found “a gutted and demoralized department that is largely incapable of addressing the many challenges before it”.
The writers indicated that:
In short, the government wound up decimating the ministry just as it confronted the most sinister challenge it has faced--the nightmarish pine beetle infestation that is sweeping through B.C.'s boreal forests like a botanical version of the Black Death.
That is the result of the cutbacks of the B.C. Liberals in dealing with this important pine beetle infestation. It is having a huge impact on the interior of British Columbia.
As I mentioned earlier, we are talking about an industry that has $16 billion in export revenues annually, but there have been cutbacks, both in terms of the number of positions that have been eliminated and the cutbacks for reforestation. We have seen reforestation budgets cut from $82 million to $3 million in this most recent year and we know reforestation is one important way of trying to address this infestation.
We have seen cutbacks at both those levels and the result compares unfavourably to the U.S. forest service. For example, each U.S. forest service employee is responsible for managing a forest area equivalent to five--