Canadian Heritage committee  Already in Quebec probably one of the biggest presences is Vélo Québec, and one of the reasons for the success of the trail in Quebec is the number of cycling routes. The 550,000 people on Le P'tit Train Du Nord is not an accident. That's a deliberate promotional activity. It's c

Canadian Heritage committee  That was done by the Canada 125 Corporation, a corporation that was set up by the federal government. I happened to be one of the incorporators as well as the secretary during its existence. That was the organization that did that.

Canadian Heritage committee  Maybe I can go back and then go forward. In Canada 125 in 1992, the single most successful program.... By the way, the then-government of Mr. Mulroney allocated $90 million for those celebrations. One of the things we observed was that the single most successful celebration was

Canadian Heritage committee  Anyway, people would write in, suggest that they were going to have a block party and say how many people were going to be there, and they'd get the equivalent number of buckets required. It was on July 1 and it was the single most successful program we had in terms of the feedba

Canadian Heritage committee  We are in the position where, for instance, if we talk about signage, it's a matter of fitting signage into the kinds of grants that the government gives to support the infrastructure program for the trail. So that's one thing. We have things like using, as a training ground, t

Canadian Heritage committee  There are probably two things that I would suggest. One is that I think completing the trail would be a tremendous statement, both in terms of the commitment to.... Well, it's not just both; it's commitment to our history, to our cultural origins, to our country in terms of its g

Canadian Heritage committee  They are going very well.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's more a matter of putting up signs. To be honest, we are making a lot of headway with municipalities in that they now recognize that the trail brings in tourism revenue. Take, for example, the Parc linéaire Le P'tit Train du Nord recreational rail trail. I was talking to th

Canadian Heritage committee  In fact, probably the most successful programs we've had are where the municipalities have made their municipality part of the Trans Canada Trail. I'll give you an example. In Charlottetown, P.E.I., there is an old people's home that happens to be adjacent to the trail, where t

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here today. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee. I have been involved in the Trans Canada Trail since 1992, which is either a tribute to my stupidity or a demonstration of dedication, I'm not sure which. I can te

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a very good point. I'll hark back to my experience as the secretary of Canada 125. The first thing to mention is that Canada 125 was done like a nine-alarm drill. It only started months before the actual year and, as a result, we were playing catch-up ball virtually from

Canadian Heritage committee  I guess what I would say to you is that our first mission is to finish linking the trails. To the extent that any of these historic sections are part of that overall linking, absolutely we include them. Our next step after the linkage is to develop what we call the feeder trail

Canadian Heritage committee  These are very interesting questions. Let us talk first about funding. Whether it is Canada 150, Parks Canada, Environment Canada or any other agency that provides funding does not really matter to us. If it gets into the budget, yes, that would be fantastic. I am struck by one

Canadian Heritage committee  After 2000, the Trans Canada Trail was faced with quite a challenge, because a lot of people sort of said, well, that's done, and went off somewhere else. Since then, a lot of rebuilding has taken place on the Trans Canada Trail as far as the organization goes. One of the chall

Canadian Heritage committee  We are sharing those results with Parks Canada.