Natural Resources committee  When you advocate for policies for governments to adopt towards the actual management of forests—whether large scale or small scale or whether they be outside the municipality or inside—what policy parameters would you like to see governments implement that will be the best for our forest health and urban management, given the pressures that bear?

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you guys for coming and presenting to the committee. Your knowledge is greatly appreciated. I listened with great interest to Mr. Connors' initial comments regarding the growing threat of wildfires and their robust and apparently growing nature throughout this country.

Natural Resources committee  That was a good answer, Brad.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you so much. We know that man îcosak do not respect civic boundaries, provincial boundaries, Treaty No. 7 boundaries and the like. They go where they need to go or want to go. How is it that the indigenous communities are able to work with provincial, federal and other bands, shall we say, or to impact the United States?

Natural Resources committee  You were talking about businesses and the opportunities that lie out there. You also said at the start of your speech that we have sometimes been referred to as “hewers of wood and drawers of water”, and how we want to change that. Under Minister Bains, our government is putting a lot into innovation and into what we call the scaling-up of businesses to do more of that processing and packing of finished goods.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank Mr. Young not only for coming, but for the tremendously detailed and interesting topic that he discusses and how he brings it out in a very relevant, easy-to-understand fashion. I find it very pleasant to hear you speak and actually be able to understand the way you communicate.

Natural Resources committee  Are you getting the appropriate level of funding to battle this mountain pine beetle and other invasive species that are coming into the parks system?

Natural Resources committee  Do you have any overarching advice for us? What should the federal government be doing that it's not doing?

Natural Resources committee  Ms. Upton, in your presentation, I believe you said that 93,000 hectares of the 200,000 hectares in Jasper National Park are already affected by the mountain pine beetle. Is this correct?

Natural Resources committee  One of the strategies in war was that—we're coming across the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I—when a hill was obviously lost, they would retreat, dig another trench and have a go at it there. Seemingly, Jasper National Park may fit that analogy. Can you tell me why don't we just retreat and try to put up a barrier somewhere else?

Natural Resources committee  How is your coordination between your organization, Parks Canada, and those areas immediately outside your jurisdiction? Are there coordinating arms that are performing some of that work? Are you getting assistance? If you were to tell people you were doing a prescribed burn and wanted to limit flight there, could you ask them to operate in another area?

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Parks Canada, for coming in and giving us some more information about the various species that are taking over our forests. Being from Calgary, I have an understanding of the mountain pine beetle. It's my understanding that as a result of climate change and the continuing warming of the planet, the mountain pine beetle is not contained, as a result of the climate not being below freezing or below -10°C or some number like that for more than 14 or 20 days straight.

Natural Resources committee  Is that yours, too, Gilles?

Natural Resources committee  Given the state of the pine beetle—and following up on Mr. Calkins' question—why are we not just trying to eradicate it as a species? If this is going to continually happen, I think we're fighting a losing battle. Is there any possible way to do that, or is that just impossible or just unwise?

Natural Resources committee  I think you bring up a good point—the municipalities. The pest doesn't know the end of the municipality's borders.