Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To the witnesses, thank you very much. I'm going to start with Mayor Mitchell.
First, Mayor, thanks for your opening testimony giving us a picture of how the derelict vessels impact a community, not just from an environmental standpoint—that alone would be enough—but also with respect to property values and just a community self-esteem aspect.
You talked about the journey. I think it's 21 years, 30 years, something to that effect. It had me thinking in terms of your leadership. Being in the grassroots, you clearly heard about this every day, going to the grocery store, the home hardware store, whatever the case may be. We have come to a successful resolution 30 years later—speed, that's not.
Can you drill down a little bit in your testimony in terms of this example? I was going to call it a best practice, but I'm not sure I would call it that. Give us some recommendations from a federal perspective working with a community or working with municipalities.
What are we doing well and what could we be doing better, based on your experience in Bridgewater, which I spent a lot of time in? I used to work at the Nova Scotia Community College and spent a lot of time at the Lunenburg campus.
Then I'll share my time with MP Hardie. Thank you.