Yes, thank you for that question.
I raised that point because back in 2008 we were very actively involved in federal transfer funds to the province, and the mitigation effort that was going to happen, the previous commitment for 10 years of mitigating the mountain pine beetle epidemic—and most of it was about mountain pine beetle, from my perspective.
We went to our communities to identify the priority activities they wanted to see, and overwhelmingly it was safety of their community from the forest fire hazard that was created by the standing deadwood from the mountain pine beetle. We embarked on fuel management reduction assessments for the communities, community wildfire safety plans, and then we ran out of money. The money got recalled and we weren't able to do the treatment work. Some work does continue, primarily at the provincial government's expense, and it's doing that for rural communities and first nations. But it's at a much reduced level and there's a significant risk for decades to come standing in front of our communities. That's what I was referring to.
