Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition today on behalf of many residents of Vancouver Island.
As many parliamentarians will know, there have been many arrests recently at Fairy Creek, a valley that still has old-growth forests, of real importance and significance to British Columbia. The petitioners note that only 2.7% of British Columbia's old-growth forest remains, and it is being logged at an unsustainable rate.
The petitioners are asking the federal government to recognize the importance of old-growth forests in any climate plan; recognize the importance of old-growth forests for biodiversity; halt the logging of old growth and specifically halt the export of raw logs; and ban the practice of taking whole forests and converting them to wood pellets for biofuel alleged to be a climate policy, which is actually degrading the capacity of our forests for sequestration.