Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question. It is a very well thought out and important question that he brings to the House on behalf of his constituents. All members of Parliament would agree that this is a massive and unfortunate act of nature. It will have quite an effect on British Columbia. We all join him in wanting to do anything we can.
The mountain pine beetle is the most serious pest of mature pine forests in western Canada. The current infestation in British Columbia is by far the largest on record. This is a massive infestation that is approaching 10 million hectares. That is an area larger than New Brunswick. Due to the scale of the infestation in an abundance of mature lodgepole pine, which is the insects' food source, complete control of the mountain pine beetle is not feasible. The only thing that will bring it under control is prolonged winter cold of minus 40 degrees for a number of days or an unseasonably cold fall snap.
However, this is not to say that the federal government has been sitting idly by, leaving the province on its own. The federal mountain pine beetle initiative, MPBI, announced in 2002, is a $40 million, six year initiative, designed to complement the provincial MPB activities and is consistent with the federal mandate.
All the mountain pine beetle initiative programs are fully operational and are being delivered in close cooperation with provincial agencies and other federal departments. Federal officers have been located in beetle epidemic regions in B.C. to facilitate delivery of the MPBI programs.
The initiative includes research programs focused on reducing current infestation impacts and the risk of future beetle epidemics. This dovetails with the province's 10 year wood salvage plan. It funds research to estimate the commercial lifespan of beetle killed timber, how best to utilize the large volume of dead timber, the impacts of timber flow, changes on the forest dependent communities, and the ecological impacts of managing the beetle killed timber stands. This research effort will provide critical information to the province in support of its 10 year plan.
It should be noted that the forest land management is a provincial mandate and it is recognized that under the B.C. forest legislation, major forest licence holders are required to carry out reforestation at their own expense. The MPBI however, does include a suite of programs assisting beetle control and forest rehabilitation on federal land, that is, first nations reserve lands, federal parks and two large blocks of federal forest lands, as well as private, non-industrial forest lands. These rehabilitation efforts are again consistent with the federal mandate. This principle was established at the outset of discussions with B.C. officials.
The mountain pine beetle initiative reforestation segment allows the federal government to do what it can on lands that are outside the responsibility of the province. I would also point out that the officials from Natural Resources Canada continue to work in close collaboration with their provincial colleagues in B.C. and in Alberta in the development of decision support systems to guide effective beetle management across western Canada.
Finally, in the interests of setting the record straight, the federal minister did respond to B.C. Forest Minister Mike de Jong. In fact, as a result of the meeting between Mr. de Jong and his federal counterpart in 2002, bureaucrats from both levels of government developed the mountain pine beetle initiatives as a fitting response that was consistent with the federal mandate. I join my colleague in all the efforts to work on this problem.