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SYDNEY, N.S. —

Back in March 2004 at a golf event he attended in Toronto, then-minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage Rodney MacDonald had a chance encounter with Ben Cowan-Dewar.

MacDonald extolled the benefits of the village of Inverness and what it would mean economically for the former coal mining community to build an authentic links golf course on the wind-swept western coastline of Cape Breton.

The development potential was enormous.

“I encouraged him to take a look at this great site in Inverness where they were hoping to see a golf course,” he said.

MacDonald would go on to become Nova Scotia premier two years later. And Cowan-Dewar invested millions of dollars, mixed with government loans, to build two of the world’s best golf courses — Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs — that opened to the public beginning in 2011.

Now, the former Progressive Conservative premier and current CEO of the Gaelic College is lending a helping hand to his “good friend” Cowan-Dewar in promoting the idea of constructing a commercial airport in Inverness that would provide direct access to the golf resorts in western Cape Breton, as well as other tourism destinations.

“More and more people are flying to their destinations,” MacDonald said.

“The commercial aspect to this is very important, if not vital, to expanding our tourism opportunities in Cape Breton Island.

“If a person is travelling to another destination, you would want to be able to land on your commercial flight close to where you’re going to be visiting. This is no different.”

The closest commercial flights land a two-hour drive away from Inverness at the J.A. Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport. But most people, according to Cape Breton-Canso MP Rodger Cuzner, a proponent of the Inverness airport project, fly into Halifax Stanfield International Airport — a more than three-hour drive to their Inverness destination.

A website was launched late last week — buildcapebreton.ca — to drum up support for the airport proposal, which is already part of a federal government review process to determine whether Ottawa will fund the airport’s reported estimated cost of $18 million.

The project was also included on the Nova Scotia government’s infrastructure priority list at the behest of Ottawa.

MacDonald was one of a number of high-profile former politicians and businesspeople to add their endorsement to the project.

Former Nova Scotia NDP premier Darrell Dexter is also lending his support in saying, “This is the next step in establishing the region as a tourist mecca for decades to come.”

Michele McKenzie is the principal at McKenzie Strategies, a management consulting firm focused on business development and strategies. She said the website was a “collaboration” among like-minded individuals who believe an airport would allow “convenient access” to this part of the island.

“Everyone benefits from that. The great thing about tourism, it’s not place-specific. People arrive and especially in Cape Breton they tour. And so those benefits are spread throughout the island,” said McKenzie, a former Nova Scotia deputy minister of tourism and former president and CEO of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Although she’s been marketing the buildcapebreton.ca website, McKenzie said she’s not being paid by Cabot Links through this informal lobbying effort.

Other notable people to lend words of encouragement on the website include former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. and former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, Glenora Distillery president and CEO Lauchie MacLean, former Destination Cape Breton Association CEO Mary Tulle and NRStor Inc. CEO and chancellor of Cape Breton University Annette Verschuren.

The operators of Breton Air, a new charter helicopter service operating out of the Sydney airport, believe it’s a good idea that will increase air traffic across the island.

“We justified launching our company due to the overall increase in tourism activity in the region. The positive economic multiplier effect from this airport would be witnessed in secondary and tertiary markets, both new and old across the Island – Breton Air included,” the company’s CEO Parker Horton and president Matt Wallace said in their comments on the website.

The argument against building a new airport in Inverness has been coming from municipalities wanting to maintain the viability of the Allan J. MacEachen Port Hawkesbury Airport, located in Port Hastings, that’s been under the management of Celtic Air Services since July 2017.

Celtic Air has catered to private and government aircraft with about 75 per cent of its traffic destined for the golf resorts in Inverness. Company president and co-founder David Morgan claims opening a new airport will bankrupt Celtic Air, which he says has invested more than $2 million in the Port Hawkesbury airport.

He has said Celtic Air is also in pursuit of landing commercial airline traffic.

MacDonald, who served as Inverness MLA from 1999 to 2009, said the Allan J. MacEachen Port Hawkesbury Airport remains an important asset even as an airport is sought for Inverness.

“The airport (in Inverness) will complement that (Port Hawkesbury) airport,” he said.

“No different than the (airport) in Port Hawkesbury complements the one in Sydney...they can all work together for the betterment of Cape Breton Island.”

chris.shannon@cbpost.com

Twitter: @cbpost_chris