Natural Resources committee  We share information regularly with our Quebec colleagues. Our understanding is that the outbreak of spruce budworm is intensifying in the area of Gaspé and below the St. Lawrence. That creates a population centre, if you will, that provides new individuals by the billions into t

Natural Resources committee  If I could add to the response there, we also understand that old forests are particularly important in New Brunswick in an area where, as my colleague said, 50% of our forests are balsam fir and spruce species, and we understand that many elements of our biodiversity depend on o

Natural Resources committee  In our case, the province has the mandate to detect and monitor for all forest health issues. In the case of the spruce budworm, the genesis of this outbreak was detected through the province, I think, and then simultaneously as well through some of our research partners. There w

Natural Resources committee  For the spruce budworm in particular, I'd characterize our relationship with the federal government as being very close, particularly given that the Canadian Forest Service has been actively involved in spruce budworm research for many decades. At the time of the outbreak discove

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  In the case of treatment, it's the provincial minister who has the legislative authority to authorize treatment.

Natural Resources committee  For the most recent experience with spruce budworm—again, our experience really began in earnest around 2013—we managed to partner extensively with our forest industry in helping with on-the-ground monitoring, simply because they have the staff and they're actively managing the f

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, certainly the State of Maine is very interested in the research that is being conducted in Atlantic Canada right now. The State of Maine regularly participates in the Healthy Forest Partnership in a variety of aspects, both on the research side and the communications s

Natural Resources committee  We quantify those costs, as well as the solution costs, over the scope of the entire outbreak cycle. We're looking at a 30-year period, which is what we use to simulate the impact and quantify the cost. Those figures are relevant to all Atlantic provinces. That's the scale of the

Natural Resources committee  I'm not aware of any evidence that shows that we prolonged the outbreak cycle through our efforts as the outbreak progressed through the late 1970s and 1980s. It could be that there were some indirect effects, but I'm not aware of them myself. I can speak more comfortably about t

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm Chris Norfolk from New Brunswick. I would add to the comments of my colleague from the Canadian Forest Service that the concerns of forest managers across the country are that forests may be in a stressed position when new and invasive alien pests come