Thank you very much, Mr. Moore.
Good morning, bonjour, members of the standing committee. Thank you so much. It is lovely to be here in Ottawa, as always, and it is our great pleasure to be here to present to you the amazing opportunity that has been afforded to Canada by the Bay of Fundy's participation in this global campaign.
The Bay of Fundy is indeed representing our country in a worldwide quest to identify the new seven wonders of nature. It's an opportunity to involve people from all over the world in identifying the world's most extraordinary natural regions.
I have lived in the Bay of Fundy area all my life. The Bay of Fundy is indeed a place of wonder. It is a place of great beauty. It is a place of incredible natural phenomena. And it is a place that the world now knows more about.
Today we would like to share an overview of the Bay of Fundy's journey and Canada's opportunity.
First, I would like to give you an overview of the origins of the new seven wonders of nature concept. In 2001, a Swiss-born Canadian adventurer and documentary filmmaker, Bernard Weber, created the New7Wonders Foundation. It's a non-profit association based in Switzerland. Its objective is to raise awareness of some of the world's most extraordinary places.
The foundation's first initiative was to organize an historic effort around the planet to recognize and identify the new seven human-made wonders of the world. Those of you who know your Greek history will remember that Herodotus, of course, identified his favourite seven back in 300 B.C. Of those, of course, only the pyramids remain. So Bernard Weber took the opportunity through the New7Wonders Foundation to basically energize the world around identifying the world's seven human-made wonders in a fun but rather intense global competition. This historic global vote took place from 2001 to 2007, when the new seven wonders were announced on 07-07-07.
At the conclusion of the built wonders campaign, the foundation announced a quest to determine the new seven wonders of nature. There were, incidentally, over 100 million votes received for the built wonders in the original campaign.
The built wonders campaign actually concluded with a highly televised gala in Lisbon, Portugal, on July 7, 2007. It was hosted by Sir Ben Kingsley and Neil Armstrong, two names I hope you recognize. The entertainment was provided by such international superstars as José Carreras, Chaka Khan, and Jennifer Lopez. It was broadcast to two-thirds of the world's population.
Petra was one of the winners in the built wonders campaign. Of course, there are some significant economic benefits of participating in such a global quest. Jordan's tourism revenues tripled during the new seven built wonders campaign.
Chichen Itza was also one of the final seven, and its visitor numbers have increased 75% since it was declared one of the new seven wonders.
That brings us to the new seven wonders of nature campaign, the campaign that was announced at the conclusion of the built wonders campaign. How did we get here? That's a good question. How did the Bay of Fundy become Canada's sole finalist in the global competition? I'll answer one of our FAQs, which is what were the other Canadian sites, or were there other Canadian sites. Yes, indeed, there were other Canadian sites nominated in the campaign. The Bay of Fundy rose to the top through a number of voting stages and became Canada's finalist.
We nominated the Bay of Fundy. Actually, the Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership nominated the Bay of Fundy. We are a non-profit tourism association working in partnership in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The sites were not permitted to be nominated by government; they had to be nominated by the public. We were pleased to be in a position to nominate the Bay of Fundy. Ever since then, we've been working in a very successful partnership with New Brunswick; Nova Scotia; the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, our federal funding partner; and also the Canadian Tourism Commission.
We started this journey together in 2007 when we were one of 441 global sites nominated in the campaign.
The next phases of voting took us to 220 semi-finalists, a further 77 semi-finalists, and then on July 7, 2009, we were selected as one of 28 elite global finalists.
We are now in the last 23 days of the campaign—28 finalists and 23 days—and we are certainly witnessing great momentum. You may recognize a few names or images from the slide. We are in very prestigious company on the global stage, with such internationally renowned sites such as the Amazon, the Galapagos, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Great Barrier Reef, the Dead Sea, and a few others that I'm sure will ring a bell.
We are very confident competing for Canada on the world stage. It may sound strange, our little old Bay of Fundy on the east coast, but there really are some extraordinary features of the Bay of Fundy that garner the world's attention normally, and certainly through this campaign.
Now I would like to pass things to Helen Jean so she can tell you a bit more about the Bay of Fundy and how it became so popular on the world stage.