Good morning, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to everyone.
I'm representing the Corporation des gestionnaires de phares de l'estuaire et du golfe du Saint-Laurent, which means, in English, the corporation that is taking care of the 43 lighthouses on the St. Lawrence River within the boundaries of Quebec.
I'm not going to repeat everything that's been said so far this morning. I'm so amazed to see that this bill is getting to be put in place eventually—and shortly, I was told. It's going to be quite an issue, because, in my words, I think we need our people who are in authority to give us some guidelines as to where we're going with the protection of our lighthouses.
As a quick example, in L'Actualité of August 2000—it's a French general magazine—it stated that 3% of the lighthouses are preserved in Canada, 77% in the United States, and 100% in Europe. I've been invited to France several times to visit with some of those people. What I'm trying to say is that once the bill is in place and we get things organized legally, etc., I'm just going to screech out and say we need help financially to keep those buildings.
I'm not preaching only for my case. We're working hard to preserve these lighthouses on the St. Lawrence. I'm talking about my area. Personally, I've put in a little over $270,000 to save one lighthouse. That's what I decided in my life; I thought it was that important. It dates from 1894; it's extremely isolated, and blah, blah, blah. There were tons of garbage on that. I have pictures to show. The work I had to do to get this lighthouse back in shape is just incredible. Now it's in immaculate condition.
So these guidelines that are coming down the road ahead of us, I'm quite impressed by that. Finally—I'm saying finally—we're getting something. You just wouldn't believe in the U.K. and Ireland and in France the support they get from their governments over there. It's just amazing. I'm an old skipper with Air Canada; I just retired a few months ago. I was there 37 years and 11 months, so I had a chance to travel quite a bit, and I met all kinds of people. I got involved in the lighthouse business, and it's just amazing.
So we need your guidelines from a point of view of law, structures, etc., but I'm just here to scream for help. We need a few dollars out there to get our lighthouses on the go.
Thank you very much. That's all I had to say.