Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.

Thank you to the witnesses. It is good to see you again. Mr. Campbell, we have known each other for a while, so I will direct my first question to you. I know you will be familiar with this.

I want to talk about how the bill addresses the issue of access roads for neighbouring communities near the protected areas. Again, I want to reflect on my own experience in Louisbourg, where the fortress site is 60 acres, yet the government eventually took 16,000 acres, including all the access to Louisbourg to Gabarus — a stretch of eight miles, effectively turning the town, which was a seaport, into an outport. I have always been concerned about Parks Canada’s overreach when it comes to taking land and how it affects neighbouring communities. Can you assure us that this will no longer be the case?

That same approach was evident in Louisbourg in the 1960s. We weren’t at the end of the road. They put us at the end of the road. They took over the provincial road that went through, and they let it run down to the point where they claimed they had to shut it down, and they shut it down. That was 50 years ago, and I don’t see a lot of difference in your approach if that’s the methodology.

I have one more question. I would like to find out what the government intends to do and what measures it intends to take to preserve the heritage and memory of communities affected by the modifications to national parks and the conservation areas. Again, I look at my own hometown, West Louisbourg, as well as Kenyon Cove and Deep Cove. Kenyon Cove and Deep Cove were communities about 120 years old. West Louisbourg was over 200 years. My mother’s family had been there for 200 years, and my grandmother was expropriated. There is no mention of them around the fortress — no acknowledgement of them.

How is Parks Canada going to deal with this, going forward?

Hopefully, it will get better going forward.