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SYDNEY RIVER - The Member of Parliament for Cape Breton-Canso is thankful to the hundreds of people who have been digging out several parts of his riding since a 72-hour snowfall earlier this month dumped over 100 centimetres of snow across northeastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island. 

Among those earning praise from Liberal MP Mike Kelloway are members of several branches of the military operating under the Team Rubicon banner, as well as close to 200 students at the Canadian Coast Guard College in Westmount who have also joined the massive clean-up effort in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM).

According to Kelloway, the wheels for these developments were put in motion roughly 48 hours into the unprecedented snowfall, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau phoned his office on the evening on February 4. 

"He wanted a bird's-eye view on the ground and he pledged his support for whatever we would need," Kelloway told Telile LJI journalist Adam Cooke from his still-snowed-in Sydney River constituency office on the morning of February 8. "And we had a really good conversation about this storm."

At midnight that same evening, Kelloway received another call, this time from Harjit Sajan, Canada's Minister of Ermergency Preparedness. A former Canadian military operative and federal Minister of Defence, Sajan's attention to detail made an immediate and lasting difference in organizing the CBRM clean-up, according to Kelloway. 

"He was up pretty much the entire night, on Sunday, dealing with a lot of things in terms of what could be the federal response at that time, because we were waiting for the province to submit [their official request]," the two-term MP recalled. 

Today, as CBRM Mayor Amanda MacDougall has announced the end of a local state of emergency for Sydney, Glace Bay, New Waterford and the surrounding communities, Kelloway is grateful for the resilience of so many constituents who have worked with federal and military officials to help Cape Breton Island dig out from this major weather event. 

"It's going to take some time, but everyone should just keep doing what they're doing," Kelloway encouraged. "[They should] know that everyone is working as hard as they can to clean things up."