Thank you, minister. Great to have you here today.

I appreciated you addressing and referring to the decision that Parks Canada made to stop using expropriation as a tool, although I’m not necessarily against expropriation in principle if people are properly compensated. That’s the other side of the equation. That’s what I want to speak to you about. You mentioned the Fortress of Louisbourg. Louisbourg is my hometown. My grandmother was expropriated in 1965, ’66. She was 85 years old. She got $4,000 for the 62 acres of land that ran from the base of the harbour to Point Wolfe. Beautiful land. There was title to it going back to 1794, and she is not the only one. It happened to a lot of people.

I don’t think you can compensate people who lost everything 60 years ago. Most of those people are gone. I don’t think it’s realistic, but you can make a commitment to the community. The damage that was done to the community is extensive. There is a 60-acre site for the fortress, and we were happy to see it built. It helped me get through university. I worked there for five summers in archeology. It was great. As somebody who loves history, it was great to see the fortress be built. However, what Parks Canada did, instead of expropriating 60 acres, they expropriated 16,000. They destroyed the communities of West Louisbourg. The fortress itself was 40 years old. West Louisbourg was over two centuries old. They expropriated West Louisbourg, they expropriated Deep Cove, they expropriated and Kennington Cove, and there was an eight-mile run from Louisbourg to Gabarus, which was its closest bigger community.

What Parks Canada did after they got the provincial government to expropriate, they stopped maintaining the road from Louisbourg to Gabarus deliberately. Back then, 60 years ago, many of the feeder roads were dirt roads. They got to the point where the bridges were falling apart and the road was falling apart and then the announcement came that they were shutting the road. It was all arbitrary and had no community consultation.

They turned my hometown, which was a well-established seaport, into an outport, and it’s still an outport. You can’t get any services after the fortress closes. The banks are gone. The credit union is gone. You can’t get gas. You might like that, but you can’t get gasoline. It’s ridiculous.

Back in the early 1990s, money was declared to build a road. It was secured and then it was abandoned. If you want to compensate that community, I would love for you to address what’s happened down there. It’s eight miles of road, 13 kilometres, about a million dollars a kilometre. If we can pay $50 billion for battery plants, why can’t we put $13 million or $14 million up to rebuild that road and reconnect the communities? It would make so much difference on the southeast coast of Cape Breton, and Cape Breton is a place with great economic challenges. It would help the entire community. I hope you consider that.

Minister, you mentioned the government is going to expand parks. We are a big country, a big land mass. I think we could use more national parks, properly created.

You also mentioned marine sanctuaries; again, properly handled and in consultation with those who live and fish off the water, that is important. I do support it in principle. Can you give us an update on what is going on with the proposed marine sanctuary in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia, and what you know about it?

For the record, Port Hilford is the birthplace of Wilf Carter, Canada’s first international music star. I would like to see Port Hilford put back on the map with this marine sanctuary for whales.

Are you familiar with this project? Have you had any interaction with the people who are building or proposing this? Can you give us any update on it?

Thank you.

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