Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.
The first petition is on log exports from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. There are about 10 pages of signatures.
The petitioners call for a tariff on log exports. This is the result of the lumber export duty that is currently in place under current market conditions. It has resulted in incentives for logs to be exported from British Columbia, particularly Vancouver Island. There are large tracts of private land holdings that are federally regulated. This means logs are being exported rather than processed locally. Currently, there are about one million acres of private forest land on central Vancouver Island and 70% of those logs are destined for export.
The petitioners call upon the government to implement a tariff on logs exported from private lands to level the playing field and ensure the Canadian mills, as well as secondary industries, have equal opportunity. They also call upon the government to work with the province of British Columbia to implement a similar tariff on logs exported from Crown land.