Mr. Speaker, this budget, and especially the climate change plan, will give us plenty of opportunities to work with the province of British Columbia. I have a very good relationship with my counterparts there, and I am confident that will be the case.
We are investing in this budget in order to fight the pine beetle problem. It is a terrible problem from both an economic perspective and an environmental perspective. It may prevent us from having a good solution to the problem of CO
2
emissions and the capacity to keep them in the forest. We strongly support the forest industry.
I want to quote Avrim Lazar, president and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada. He said:
The industry is encouraged by the tone of the government’s climate change plan and while important details still need to be resolved, we find this plan, combined with earlier policy announcements outlined in the budget, to be very positive.
I agree with him. We need this plan for our forests. We need this budget.