‘Falsehoods’ surround park proposal, says reader

Over the last number of weeks, I have followed the proposal for the Atlantic Memorial Park in Sydney Mines.

Now, after listening to a recent edition of CBC’s Information Morning, I have to comment.

It is unfortunate that park organizers Cyril Aker and Brian Ferguson are repeating the falsehood that Green Cove in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, which was the proposed site of the Never Forgotten National Memorial (NFNM), is a pristine site when, in actual fact, it has been bulldozed and dynamited on at least two occasions and has an existing parking lot and a board walk.

The “bitter controversy” they mention was fake news orchestrated by a small group of naysayers (only six of whom live North of Smokey) who repeated falsehoods that the media never properly investigated.

A part of the controversy involved the Mother Canada statue but the proponents of the new project were willing to overlook that if Tony Trigiani was willing to construct it at the mine site. I smell a distinct odour of hypocrisy regarding that!

The Green Cove site passed all the environmental and aboriginal concerns of Parks Canada. Parks Canada has confirmed that a project such as the NFNM was suited to the Green Cove site according to its own management plan for the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Further, on Nov. 26, 2012, Gordon Moore, Dominion President of the Royal Canadian Legion, fully endorsed the Never Forgotten National Memorial and commended the NFNM Foundation for their patriotic enterprise.

Finally, I believe the project is not currently going forward because of the pettiness of the federal Liberals who view this much-desired project as part of the legacy of former prime minister Stephen Harper. Ray Stapleton Ingonish Center