The bronze sculpture by artists Jules Lasalle and Andre Fournelle, depicting the expulsion of the Acadians which started in 1755, graces the landscape at Grand Pre in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley on February 16, 2009. It is widely accepted that the deportation of more than 10,000 Acadians from Maritimes in the late 1700s was a crime against humanity, even by contemporary standards. But could this traumatic event in Canada's early history be considered a genocide? The Acadian Society of New Brunswick, which advocates for more than 250,000 French speakers and Acadians in the province, revived that thorny debate during its annual general meeting on the weekend. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan