Those attending the Yarmouth Lions Club’s 52nd anniversary charter night on Saturday, May 31, heard guest speaker Robert Manuge outline the importance of transportation links and honoured Millie Francis as the club’s citizen of the year.

Francis, a Lionette who has served as president and treasurer, was honoured for standing out as a volunteer in her community. She has assisted numerous local causes and organizations among them the food bank, Girl Guides, her church, cystic fibrosis, the VON, Red Cross and the Veterans Firefighters Association.

The Lions Club seeks out an individual each year whose volunteer efforts have “enriched the lives of those in our community who need help, without looking for rewards or accolades.”

In his address to those at the charter night banquet Robert Manuge said when you consider the various issues like tourism, health care, a declining fishery, outmigration and gas prices all of these issues “can be traced back to transportation.”

“Without air, train and bus service the tourism industry is suffering, our young workforce is moving away, fishermen are finding it harder to ship their product to the United States and people who don’t own a car can’t get to their medical appointments easily.”

Manuge, whose association with Industrial Estates Limited, resulted in Michelin and other industries locating in Nova Scotia, told the Lions that there is another place in Canada that is “geographically and economically similar to southwest Nova Scotia that is thriving.”

Referring to the Gaspe area of Quebec he said “Like Yarmouth this place is at the end of a peninsula where the economy relies on the fishery and tourism yet it still has air, train and bus service.”

He recently visited the Gaspe returning after some 63 years to a place where he had served with Canadian National Express-and set about determining how that area managed to continue the services we have lost in our area.

He told the Lions Club that the efforts of an organization called Rural Dignity, co-founded by Cindy Patterson which was formed in the 1980s as a grassroots organization to fight Canada Post’s deciosion to close rural post offices played an important role.

“Rural Dignity has continued to work in cooperation with the fishery, environment, church and labour groups across Canada to lobby on behalf of the protection of small community infrastructures. Most important to Gaspe’s economy was Rural Dignity’s campaign to save the railway line served by VIA.”

He contacted Cindy Patterson and she said there was a groundswell of interest in the counties of Gaspe, Perce and Grand Riviere to hold onto the passenger rail line., Patterson called upon the three counties to send representatives to a meeting at the junction of the main highway and railway line and to bring suitcases. The suitcases were piled in a pyramid obstructing the highway and finally the three counties bought the roadbed at a cost of $25 million (receiving aid from all levels of government) and, while still sitting with a heavy debt, they managed to save their railway service.

Manuge said during his recent visit he learned that industrial development is also booming in Gaspe. A Danish company employs 305 people producing blades for wind turbines. Which have been shipped throughout the world.

Her made a reference to an article in the Halifax Chronicle Herald by a renewable energy producer who helped arrange a meeting between a European wind turbine manufacturer that was interested in setting up shop in Nova Scotia and Nova Scotia Business Inc. The two met, Manuge said, and the company was told there was no financial assistance available for a venture of this type in Nova Scotia. Four of that company’s turbines are running in Nova Scotia “however not one component was manufactured in our province, rather they were made in Prague.”

Citing attributes in south western Nova Scotia Manuge urged those at the banquet “to let our vision soar and talk as a group of three counties. It’s time for our elected officials at the federal, provincial and municipal levels to get together and originate a policy employing some muscle to obtain the services we badly need,” he concluded.