A meeting was held at Forillon National Park to celebrate the award and honour Marie-Laure Rochefort, the first president of the Association of Persons Expropriated from Forillon and their Descendants.

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"It's a privilege to acknowledge and celebrate today the tremendous efforts of our friend and ally, Marie-Laure Rochefort, in commemorating expropriated persons. She has been the driving force behind the Association's success and accomplishments. The financial contribution announced today will allow us to carry on, on her behalf, our ‘Duty to Remember’ with the expropriated families and the Parks Canada team."

Hermeline Smith
Association of Persons Expropriated from Forillon and their Descendants

"At Parks Canada, excellence is a core value that shapes how we undertake our work. The dedication, passion and respect demonstrated by the Forillon expropriated persons whom we work with, particularly Marie-Laure Rochefort, are exemplary and deeply inspiring. The ongoing special relationship we are fostering with the Association of Persons Expropriated from Forillon and their Descendants, as well as with members of expropriated families, will allow us to accomplish great things together."

Ron Hallman
President and Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada

• In June 1970, Forillon became Quebec's first national park in the Canadian network. Located at the eastern tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, Forillon National Park spans 244.8 km², including a marine strip that extends over 150 metres (4.4 km²) wide. 

• To create Forillon National Park, around 225 families had to vacate their properties, and nearly 1,200 owners lost their woodlots and parts of their cultivated land. This expropriation led to major upheavals in the family, economic and social life of these residents and the community.

• In 2010, the Association of Persons Expropriated from Forillon and their Descendants was created with the mandate to represent the expropriated people of Forillon in all consultative bodies related to Forillon National Park and to integrate the history of expropriation into the broader history of Gaspésie, Quebec and Canada. Marie-Laure Rochefort is president of the Association. 

• Since 2010, the Association has been a key partner for Parks Canada. It is consulted at key strategic moments and serves on the park's advisory committee. Collaborative leadership with the Association has resulted in meaningful connections and mutually beneficial accomplishments, such as the Pass Program, which grants park access to six generations of expropriated people, the installation of commemorative panels honouring families who once lived in various sectors of the park, and, more recently, the Grande-Grave Heritage Accommodation Project.

• The Parks Canada CEO Awards of Excellence, the Agency's highest honour, were created to recognize partners and employees who demonstrate exceptional excellence or achieve outstanding results.

• On June 7, 2024, the award was presented to 13 members of expropriated families (Marie-Laure Rochefort, Amanda Roberts, Andrée Bouchard, Claudine Noël, Debbie Phillips, Eileen Perry, Elizabeth Tuzo McGregor, Hermeline Smith, Kathleen Langlais, Lynn-Ann Smith, Pierre O'Connor, Pierrette Perry, Sarah-Émilie Fournier) and to four Parks Canada employees (Michel Queenton, Émilie Devoe, Élisabeth Lacoursière, Stéphane Marchand (retired)) in the "Spirit of collaboration" category, in recognition of the "Creation of a lasting relationship between the expropriated persons of Forillon and Parks Canada."

Associated links

• Parks Canada
• Forillon National Park
• 2024 CEO Awards of Excellence Ceremony

Hermeline Smith
Association of Persons Expropriated from Forillon and their Descendants
418-360-3377
caidensimon1@gmail.com

Michel Queenton
Forillon National Park, Parks Canada
418-360-6222
michel.queenton@pc.gc.ca