Kevin Murphy – Save Owls Head

January 22, 2020July 2, 2020

Video: MLA Kevin Murphy Defends Secret Delisting Process at Chamber Meeting

MLA Murphy Defends Owls Head Delisting Process
In this video from the Musquodoboit Harbour Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Old School in Musquodoboit Harbour on Wednesday, January 22, 2020, MLA Kevin Murphy mounts a vigorous defense of the controversial decision by the provincial government to remove Owls Head Provincial Park from a list of protected areas in order to sell it to a very wealthy American couple who want to build as many as three golf courses there. [We apologize for the loud typing in the background.]Here are a few highlights to listen for: 1. Murphy insists that despite all of the documents identifying the land as “Owls Head Provincial Park,” the land was never anything more than “unceded Crown land…a piece of property that does not enjoy any protected status.” [Our italics]2. People who thought that the land was protected simply did not read the relevant documents carefully enough and missed all of the “ifs.” 3. It was a “previous government” that released “Our Parks and Protected Areas: A Plan for Nova Scotia” in 2013. 4. The Cabinet was entirely within its right to use a “minute” letter to keep its decision to delist the land a secret. 5. He said there were some people who never want to cut down a single tree, but the province needed to strike a “balance” between protecting the environment and economic development. 6. He was hearing from many people in Little Harbour and “many significant business people in our area who have reached out to me who have expressed their support for the process…”[Our italics]7. He criticized the media for only telling “one side” of the story.
Posted by Eastern Shore Cooperator on Wednesday, 22 January 2020

Video of the Musquodoboit Harbour Chamber of Commerce meeting on Wednesday, January 22, 2020. Courtesy of the Eastern Shore Cooperator. Please allow a moment to load.

In a video on the Eastern Shore Cooperator’s Facebook page, MLA Kevin Murphy mounts a vigorous defense of the controversial decision by the provincial government to remove Owls Head Provincial Park from a list of protected areas in order to sell it to a very wealthy American couple who want to build as many as three golf courses there.
Richard Bell, Eastern Shore Cooperator

January 14, 2020July 3, 2020

MLA Kevin Murphy on Delisting Owls Head

Full Article Here>

Posted by Richard Bell
January 14, 2020, 3:36 PM
Eastern Shore Cooperator

In a January 3 2020 email to the Cooperator, MLA Kevin Murphy said that he first heard about the golf courses about two years, and that he had had two phone calls from the golf course lobbyist, Michael Samson. He wrote that he had not talked about the project with any other lobbyists, nor had he discussed the project with anyone from the Owls Head community (within 50 miles of Owls Head.)

January 2, 2020March 5, 2021

LTE: In dark over Park Development

Re: “Golf developer threatens Owls Head park” (Dec. 30 Reader’s Corner). Along with Dusan Soudek, we are shocked, dismayed and incredulous that the status of this park reserve could be changed in such a sneaky and underhanded way! Not only is this action — to remove the proposed 267-hectare parcel from protection to profit — despicable on every level, it flies in the face of actions taken and funded to establish the protection of 100 islands of the Eastern Shore.

Announcements in 2016 by the federal MP, provincial MLA and councillors for the area promoted the saving of these ecosystems, which would include the wetlands and barrens of the shoreline.