The site currently houses the Juno Beach Center, a private Canadian museum that has been operating for almost 20 years. The museum has been embroiled in a long legal dispute for two years with French builder Foncim, who plans to build two buildings near the beach for a total of 66 apartments. “We will do everything possible to bring a proper solution to this dispute,” Macaulay told reporters outside the museum on Wednesday. Veteran Secretary Lawrence MacAulay watches Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shake hands with World War II veteran Al Roy as he visits Juno Beach after the Canadian National Ceremony for the 75th anniversary of D-Day at Juno Beach in Courseulles-Sur- Mer, France. on June 6, 2019. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press)
Save Juno Beach, a Canadian group working to stop the development, says the construction of apartments on the site where Canadian soldiers participated in the Normandy landings will honor the sacrifices made by those soldiers who invaded the beach on June 6, 1944. However, a French court ruling in early January gave Foncim the right to begin construction later this year. A spokesman for the manufacturer told French media that construction could begin in September and take up to two years. MacAulay did not elaborate on the type of resolution he would like to see, but noted that he had met with the mayor of Courseulles-sur-Mer – where Juno Beach is located – and would meet with the French representative to commemorate and veterans to stress the importance of celebrating the loss of Canadians who died in Juno. “I’m definitely not going to direct what the center is doing, what the city is doing here or what the French government is doing,” he said. “My job is to show how important respect and remembrance are, and of course to show how important Juno Beach is to Canada, because a lot of our blood has been shed here.”

Unlike the Save Juno Beach group, the museum says it is not categorically opposed to being built near the landing site. The legal dispute between the builder and the Juno Beach Center focused largely on the use of a street – called la Voie des Français Libres – built and operated by the museum. Foncim plans to use the road during construction. The museum tried to block access to the developer by arguing that construction would cut off access to the site. “We are very concerned about the impact this will have on the Juno Beach Center,” the museum said in an earlier statement to the CBC.