Mr. Speaker, in the minister's list of spending he talked about the Asian longhorn beetle, and the word beetle is quite personal to me. Over the last 10 years or more the province of British Columbia has had a natural disaster occur in its forests as a result of the mountain pine beetle. The Liberals are aware of the devastation it has caused. Their record is not something of which they should be proud.
In 2002 the British Columbia minister of forestry was in Ottawa. He told the government that the province had a five year, billion dollar plan to mitigate and try to arrest the damage that had been caused by the mountain pine beetle. There was no response to that. The federal government said that it would contribute $40 million to B.C., less than 10% of the province's five year plan.
In 2004 the province asked the federal government to be partners in a 10 to 15 year plan. It wanted $1 billion plus a long term commitment while the job was being done. The government offered the province 10% of that, $100 million, with no commitment to the future.
Why does the government seem to have so much indifference about the problems of British Columbia?