Community groups and municipalities in eight provinces have come forward with business plans to save only a fraction of the lighthouses that Ottawa says are no longer needed for navigational purposes. In all, 128 plans were submitted by the June 1 deadline, the federal Fisheries Department confirmed Tuesday.

Five years ago, the department declared 970 of its active and inactive lighthouses surplus, saying they were no longer needed as aids to navigation, mainly because mariners now rely on satellite signals to set their courses.

Federal spokesman Andrew Anderson * said despite the deadline, the department is willing to accept more business plans over the next two years, insisting that Ottawa isn’t about to start demolishing or selling off surplus lighthouses.

*(Ed note: Arthur Anderson is no longer in this position)

“We are acutely aware that some of them can be of tremendous historic importance,” Anderson said in an interview from Ottawa.

“If there’s a community interested … in taking a property and leveraging it for economic development in their community, then we certainly will enable that.”

Of the 128 plans submitted, there are: 50 from Ontario, 29 from Nova Scotia, 20 from P.E.I., 12 from Quebec, eight from Newfoundland and Labrador, five from New Brunswick, two from Manitoba and two from British Columbia. Continue reading →