Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and her observations, and she is right that it is a magnificently unique piece of Canada. I had the great honour just last summer to make my first visit to the island in its entirety. Environment Canada has a major weather station on the island, which would remain on the island as it is transformed into a national park.
There is some cleanup to do from decades past, with regard to an old fuel storage facility and old light towers no longer in use. However, it is indeed a very moving experience to wander the 42-kilometre-long sand spit, some 300 kilometres northeast of Halifax, and observe these wild horses. Whether from vessels coming to North America or Spanish vessels going to Latin America, the precise origin of these horses is unknown. It is amazing that they have survived, numbering several hundred, over these years in such a barren space along with, as my colleague observed, several hundred species of birds and, from time to time depending on extreme weather events, birds and butterflies carried by hurricanes to the island.