Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to stand and be heard in this take note debate tonight, which hopefully is going to draw attention to the problem of the pine beetle in British Columbia. However, we need to take a look at this issue not only from British Columbia's perspective but from my riding's perspective as well, because the pine beetle impacts it also in a very significant way.
The forest industry is a large economic driver in my riding. It is an important part of the livelihood of many individuals who live in my riding. Let me put it this way. I have a geographically large riding made up of a significant number of communities and there is not one community I can think of in my riding that has not been impacted in a significant way by the softwood lumber industry or the forest industry in one way or another. Because of that, we are looking across the mountains. My riding is in Alberta and reaches from Edmonton to the B.C. border, and through Jasper National Park, by the way.
I will talk a bit about the parks, the impact or lack of impact of this crisis and what is happening on the other side of the mountains. Looking across the mountains into British Columbia we can see the devastation that is being caused by the pine beetle. Speaker after speaker this evening talked about that devastation and how it has impacted their communities. It really is something that we should consider.
My colleagues have talked about the lack of resources being applied to the problem in British Columbia and how that is so different from the ice storm or perhaps the SARS crisis, which also impacted other areas of this country in a significant way. By the way, SARS did impact our area of the country in tourism.
There is a difference with regard to the impact and the amount of dollars applied from the federal side of things with regard to the ice storm or SARS; that is, it did not take years and years for the government to get to the table to address the problem. When the ice storm hit, emergency relief was available. When SARS hit, emergency relief was available to deal with it as soon as possible.
Let me say, though, that the pine beetle infestation hit many years ago and this thing just started to grow. It is a lot like a fire. If the problem is not addressed at its infancy, it will grow and become an animal that is uncontrollable in a very short time. That is what we see with a forest fire and that is what we are seeing with the pine beetle.
This issue was left. It was neglected. Because of that, it has grown into a crisis beyond belief. It is now a challenging problem. Timber worth up to $9 billion has been destroyed already and it is possible that will be up to $16 billion. Also, that does not count the amount of timber that is in jeopardy in my province.
We are becoming very alarmed at what we are seeing with regard to the pine beetle, because it is starting to get through the parks. We have seen over the last year signs of the pine beetle getting into Willmore Wilderness Park, a provincial park in the Grande Cache area.
That is very significant because it means that the pine beetle leaped the Rocky Mountains. It is not the first time this has happened. It happened in the 1940s and between 1977 and 1986, a few decades ago. It was neglected back then, just like a fire that is neglected. It turned into an absolutely massive problem that created thousands of dollars' worth of losses in timber.
This can be dealt with in two different ways, or in three or four different ways, I suppose. One of the ways is to just leave it alone, cross our fingers and hope that we get minus 40° for a couple or three weeks. That should arrest the problem. That is one approach. That has been the approach of this government for the last number of years. We are not convinced that it is an appropriate approach.
We do not do that to a forest fire. Our timber is too valuable to just leave it. When a fire starts, it has to be aggressively attacked. We attack the fire so that we can protect the forest for future generations. When a forest is gone we lose the watershed, we lose the potential for good soil, we lose water quality, and we lose the natural ecosystem of the entire forest and the land around it. This has massive repercussions on the natural environment of both Alberta and British Columbia.
To just neglect it and not deal with it is not an option. That is a plan that just does not work and has not been working in the past. We have to do something similar to what we would do with a forest fire. We have to aggressively attack it. This forest fire, this pine beetle infestation, is out of hand. It is not a forest fire, it is a pine beetle infestation, but it has caused a massive disruption of a massive area of land and we have to attack it with a significant amount of resources.
Therein lies the problem. The B.C. government has come forward with a plan, but we see little support from this federal government. We are wondering why the government is not there. Why is the federal government not trying to work hand in glove with the provincial government? It could be said that it is provincial jurisdiction and started as provincial jurisdiction and the federal jurisdiction should not butt in.
Perhaps the government can claim that in British Columbia, but it cannot claim that in the national parks. Jasper and Banff National Parks are 100% federally supported and are within federal jurisdiction. It is a natural buffer between the forests in Alberta which are outside of the park and the beetle problem in British Columbia. It is a natural place for us to arrest it, at least at that border, so it does not jeopardize more forests heading west, which is the direction these beetles are moving.
I put this on the table and challenge the Liberal government to wake up and realize the potential of the hazard. It cannot turn around and blame a provincial government for it. It can only look at itself in the mirror. It is on record that we have a problem now in the national parks, which are 100% within the jurisdiction of the Liberal government, and it needs to deal with it.
Right now the national parks have said that it is a natural disaster, that they will leave it alone and let it run its course. We have seen the devastation that has occurred in British Columbia by letting it run its course. We do not say that if a fire breaks out, whether it is in the park or out of the park. There is only one time we would do that in a park, and that is if we want to control some of the old forests. We do not do that by allowing a beetle to get completely out of control as we have seen in British Columbia.
With regard to solving the problem, we need to aggressively attack it. We need to have a government that realizes exactly the problem. We have seen tonight in this debate, as others have spoken from different constituencies, how devastating this is to their ridings and to British Columbia. They have put that on the table. Hopefully, this evening we can raise some awareness of it and bring to the attention of the government in power that it has to get serious about the problem.
I understand a 10 year provincial plan has been brought forward. We have seen no commitment by the government to support that plan. We challenge it to do that. That is the least it can do, even if it is long after it should have been addressed. It is similar to SARS, or an ice storm, or other natural disasters that we have seen across the country. We do that as Canadians. When a natural disaster devastates an industry, we try to do what we can. Yet for some reason British Columbia has been left out. It is almost as if Ottawa looks at the forests in British Columbia as hinterland and does not worry about them. That is exactly what they are, hinterland, and they are being destroyed before our eyes. We have a government that talks about Kyoto, that talks about carbon credits, that talks about how it is an environmentalist, but it is turning a blind eye to protecting an environment that is being devastated by this beetle, This is not only about the environment. It is about the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of timber and the jobs that go with it, including the livelihoods of families, communities, et cetera.
We have to get serious. We cannot allow the neglect that happened before. In the forties this beetle caused problems in Alberta. The governments turned a blind eye to it and let it run its course. It caused massive amounts of damage. We saw it again from 1977 to 1986. We cannot allow it to happen again. We have to deal with this at its infancy. While it is not in its infancy in B.C., it is in the parks and in Alberta. Now is the time to act.
I encourage the government to get off its backside and do something creative and constructive for the benefit of Canadians in this part of Canada.