One of the most appealing parts of my riding is the Narrows. As Jack said, the Narrows is the historic entrance to St. John's harbour. It's iconic. For anybody who watches that fabulous CBC production, Republic of Doyle, in the opening of the show you see the Narrows. It's just absolutely breathtaking. Most mornings on my Facebook page I put up pictures of the Narrows and the weather looking out towards Ireland.
On one side of the Narrows, you have Cabot Tower, which was built about 100 years ago to commemorate Marconi's first transatlantic message. You have Signal Hill. Then at the bottom of Signal Hill, on that side of the Narrows, you have fishing heritage. There are flakes. There are fishing boats. It's a little fishing village within the city.
On the other side of the Narrows you have Fort Amherst, and that has more of a military history. In World War II, for example, there were bunkers built there. There was a chain put across the Narrows, across the water, to prevent German U-boats from coming in. A couple of U-boats that were caught in the chain nets actually fired torpedoes in through the Narrows.
So it's iconic and there's a real history in the Narrows.
Over the past year a community group has been formed. Actually it's more than a community group. It's called “the Narrows”. On one side you have the Battery community association, and on the other side you have the Fort Amherst community association. So it's spearheaded by two community groups. Then there's also St. John's tourism and provincial and federal representatives. This community-led group takes in probably about a dozen groups. The whole purpose of this Narrows group is to redevelop both sides of the Narrows. On the one side with the military history, all the fortifications that were there are crumbling into the sea. The fishing heritage has seen a number of storms and storm surges in recent years, and it's crumbling into the sea. This group has been formed to enhance the Narrows.
When the boundary originally came out, there was no change in my riding whatsoever. I was surprised to see that there was a change. I have no objection, for example, to Witless Bay and Bay Bulls being included in my riding. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I've also been a part of this community group to enhance the Narrows. If you split that in half between Jack and me, if you split it between two ridings, I believe that will weaken the work that's been done, and an incredible amount of work has been done to date to try to enhance the Narrows. That is the crux of my argument. Don't split it between two ridings. We're not talking about a lot of people in terms of including that. Again I have no objection to Bay Bulls or Witless Bay being included in the riding, but splitting the Narrows in two will split the community in two. I think that would go against the whole boundary mandate. So that's the crux of my argument.