Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Moore, and thank you to the group. Good morning, everybody. As the vice-president of external relations and visitor experience at Parks Canada, I really appreciate the opportunity this morning to be able to contribute to the preparations of Canada's 150

Canadian Heritage committee  I participated in that conference, and I believe that would be a great step forward. When we start to look at commitments in the last Speech from the Throne, for instance, on creating the Rouge national urban park--or near urban--I think that will be a great direction for part of

Canadian Heritage committee  In 1967 there was quite a large push, in fact, in National Parks and National Historic Sites. In fact, it was a period of looking at the systems plans in both of those areas. From a national historic sites perspective, it really pushed off the idea of system planning, looking a

Canadian Heritage committee  We've really been focusing on a connection with youth. As much as it's in the popular media today to talk about the nature deficit, we believe that we also have an equally disturbing history deficit among our youth in Canada, and perhaps among all Canadians. One thing we have b

Canadian Heritage committee  I forgot to mention that point, but consulting Canadians is indeed very important when it comes to creating new parks or new historical sites. Parks Canada considers it crucial to communicate with urban populations. However it is difficult to do so because there is a lot of noise

Canadian Heritage committee  All Canadians may request that the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada confer the status of national historic site upon a given place. In addition to the 150th anniversary, there is another very important event in the history of Parks Canada; I am referring here to the

Canadian Heritage committee  It's quite difficult to say. If the place in question is already a historical site it should normally be the object of a certain protection. In other cases it is longer because we have to wait for the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to confer the status of historical

Canadian Heritage committee  Fortunately, just last month Minister Kent was in Toronto to kick off the consultation process on the Rouge Valley urban national park. We certainly received a lot of ideas. We started with a small group of people who had been highly dedicated to the Rouge Valley over the past 20

Canadian Heritage committee  To look at both of those questions, I'll take the second one first. We did have a passport program in the seventies and eighties. It was quite successful. This Xplorers program we developed gives you a guidebook to each of our parks and sites and, as a youth, you can explore. T

Canadian Heritage committee  That's an excellent question, Mr. Young. Thank you very much. We hire about 1,200 students a year at Parks Canada. The student workforce is an important piece of our workforce across the country, but on top of that, we've done a few things. We've been working on a program calle

Canadian Heritage committee  My Parks Canada Pass.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a program called My Parks Pass.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. It isn't that easy to offer free admission because of various factors. It is not specifically because of the federal government. Let me give you the example of a school very close to here, attended by students from the Vanier neighbourhood. It is not really a very rich neig

Canadian Heritage committee  I think for an event such as Canada's 150th anniversary, that could be a part of it.

Canadian Heritage committee  In Montreal, currently, part of our objective is to hold more activities in the Lachine Canal sector, in order to foster a greater sense of belonging to Canada among Montrealers. We have a lot of land close to the Lachine Canal, and of course there are a lot of people who use it