Dear Minister Mackay:

I grew up on the Bonavista peninsula, but I spent most of my adult life on the "mainland". Having moved back a few years ago with my partner, Martin Burton who has donated his skills on several levels, as an artist, to promote this beautiful community that we now call home, we are very disappointed to learn that your ministry is abandoning this dream that has given so many people in this town new hope for a properous future.

To your office, I'm sure we are just a grant number, but believe me, to this community, the Garrick Theatre Restoration Project means life support not only to Bonavista but the many smaller communities that are adjacent to us. With the proper marketing we can draw the mighty tourist dollar down from the Trans Canada Highway though approximately 20 - 30 communities along the way and finally to landsend in Bonavista which has a rich 500 year history. The theatre (and theatre is very big with tourist) will undoubly be used to entertain these very same tourist with tales of our forefathers who fished and farmed this area for 500 years, it will also educate our youth about their past, it can be used to draw conventions to this area and generate a new souce of revenue. Schools and the local college can use it for fund raising, seminars will be given there and people will find employment there, full time, part time or student jobs, this to will provide a new source of funding fo! r Bonavista and surrounding villages - tax dollars will be generated and circulated. Theatre is very important and is becoming more and more important, a community can be rebuilt and sustained with this project.

Your consideration to restore funding to this vital and life sustaining project would be greatly appreciated not only as a way of generating much needed tourism dollars to this area but would also stand as a reminder that you are listening to the grassroots that is spoken off so much in your election campaigns. Martin and I thank you in advance for reconsidering your withdrawal of funding.

Yours sincerely,

I. Smith
Bonavista
Irene.Smith1.nl.sympatico.ca

cc:
Hon. Loyola Hearn, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans
Hon. Danny Williams, Premier, Newfoundland and Labrador
Hon. Tom Hedderson, Minister, Tourism, Culture and Recreation
Hon. Kathy Dunderdale, Minister, Innovation, Trade and Rural Development
Scott Simms, M.P., Bonavista Gander Grand Falls-Windsor
Roger Fitzgerald, M.H.A., Bonavista South
Paul Mills, Vice-President (Newfoundland and Labrador), ACOA
Mayor Betty Fitzgerald, Town of Bonavista