For
Immediate Release
June 25, 2004
Barrett’s
marine heritage initiative picked up by Ontario Government
Queens Park - Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant
MPP Toby Barrett saw the culmination of his efforts toward protecting
shipwrecks as he spoke to Bill 60 - the Ontario Heritage Amendment Act,
2004 - yesterday.
The Act, which received second
reading debate in the Legislature, contains marine heritage protection
measures that follow the direction set four years ago when Barrett first
introduced his Private Members Bill - The Ontario Marine Heritage Act,
1999.
“I'm happy to say that
the bill we're debating today echoes many of the goals we aimed to achieve
back in 1999,” Barrett said, during his debate in the Legislature.
“I'm from a commercial fishing town, Port Dover. It's also a commercial
diving town,” said Barrett. “In 1998, a friend of mine from
Port Dover, Jim Murphy, wrote me a letter asking for tougher marine heritage
protection for the shipwrecks and artifacts, the hundreds and hundreds
of shipwrecks that lie beneath the lakes - I quote from his letter:
“‘With a province-wide
diving community of several thousand divers, it is imperative we have
a strong protection mechanism in place to protect these sites from looting
divers.’”
Barrett went on to relate
a personal story in the House of near marine disaster to illustrate the
need for protective heritage legislation to honour lives lost on the water.
“I ran a fishing boat
up on a reef in the south Atlantic - regrettably, we hit that reef 12
times [and] we bounced down over the other side,” recounted Barrett.
“If anyone has ever come close to either sinking a boat or drowning,
I would hope that they would reflect on that when they consider the seriousness
of the part of this legislation that enshrines the artifacts and the wrecks
on our lakes.”
“In many ways,
these wrecks are graveyards - one or two hands were lost in some cases;
hundreds of people have perished on these wrecks,” Barrett continued.
“They are forgotten, and I think the point of this legislation,
certainly the point of work that I've done over the last several years,
is to do our best to ensure that at least not every single wreck in the
Great Lakes gets stripped.”
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For more information:
Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant MPP Toby Barrett - 519-428-0446 |
