Canada. Forest Insects Control Board : The Forest Insects Control Board was established on September 14th, 1945 by Order in Council P.C. 6018. The Board was created in response to pressure from the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association (CPPA). The CPPA was calling for government action to help with the major damage the spruce budworm epidemic begun in the early 1940s was causing to Canadian forests. The Board fell under the wider government policy of postwar reconstruction embodied in the Department of Reconstruction Act, 1944. The Forest Insects Control Board's main responsibility was to control forest insect outbreaks in Canadian forests with a specific focus on the spruce budworm outbreak.
Prior to the establishment of the Forest Insects Control Board, the control of forest insects was left to the jurisdiction of the individual provinces. The Department of Agriculture's Forest Insect Survey had been conducting scientific entomological research since 1939 (and continued to do so until the creation of the Department of Forestry in 1960), but the federal government had not played a role in extermination and control. Thus the severity of the spruce budworm problem involved the federal government for the first time in the control of forest insects. The Forest Insects Control Board was created to act as the main body of authority in co-ordinating the effort to resolve the spruce budworm problem. The emphasis of the Board was to institute the necessary field operations to exterminate the spruce budworm from infected forest areas. To accomplish this, in cooperation with the provinces, the Board conducted survey work, experiments, and assembled reports on the problem of the spruce budworm and other forest insects.
In 1948 the Department of Reconstruction passed on responsibility for Board to the Department of Mines and Resources. The Board changed hands again in 1950 when it fell under the portfolio of the Department of Resources and Development in the Forestry Branch. In 1952, the Board was disbanded. By the early 1950s the spruce budworm epidemic had been brought under control, whether naturally or through the efforts of the Forest Insects Control Board. The federal government's involvement and control of forest insects continued in the Department of Resources and Development Forestry Branch until 1953, when the Department of Resources and Development was absorbed into the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. The Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources Forestry Branch continued the work of its predecessor until an independent Department of Forestry was established in 1960.
