Thank you very much, and welcome to each of you to our fine region. We're thrilled to have you here and to have this opportunity to present.
To get right into it, my name is Melissa Blake, and I am the mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which is the largest municipality in Canada. We stretch from an hour south of here to Fort Chipewyan, which is the oldest settlement in Alberta. It's a very vast area. But our history is a little bit of what I want to fill you in on. Certainly it started with our first nations people, our aboriginal people, repairing canoes with the oil sands way back in history.
Through evolution and technology improvements, we've seen periods of increased economic activity. We've seen, essentially, booms and busts, expansion and recession, and lately what we're seeing is cognizance that within the municipal boundaries of that vast area that I referred to is contained the energy security for Canada and for North America. It has been an incredible transformation.
Just to highlight some of the resources that are available to us in this region, what we have on world reserve records is 177 billion barrels, which is only behind Saudi Arabia for quantity, but our known reserves that are ultimately recoverable with today's technology are close to 311 billion barrels of oil. In fact, if we look at new and emerging technologies down the road, that absolutely skyrockets to 1.7 trillion barrels. So you can see where the order of magnitude comes in and the importance for Canada.
We did create what was called the “business case” last year. It incorporated industry projections. It incorporated stakeholder concerns that were involved in that. Where that business case originated, back in 2002, they had created scenarios for population growth and investment. What we have actually experienced in that timeframe was $37 billion invested in oil sands. In fact, what we project in a conservative $30-per-barrel oil scenario is another $56.6 billion. As you know, at more than $58 per barrel, which we have seen in recent times, that's very likely to have us, in a fifteen-year period, seeing $100 billion in investment.
When we look at the benefits that flow from that, what it does is generate jobs, 240,000 of them across Canada by 2008. We estimate that about 60% of those, or 144,000, are in Alberta. So 100,000 other jobs are created across Canada from oil sands development, and we expect those numbers to continue into the future.
Essentially, when we're looking at that kind of growth, there are challenges that come to the community in relation to the population increasing, but when you consider it, I think you realize that the funds we need to increase our capacity have pushed us and our municipality to our limits. The Municipal Government Act in Alberta enables one and a half times debt servicing against your municipal revenues. We've increased that to two times now, with provincial authority, and in fact what we're carrying is debt that's three times higher than Calgary and Edmonton.
Before I identify some of the highlights from the action plan that I have and then move on to thoughts on how you might be able to help us, in fact some of the things we've undertaken up to this point have included a multi-stakeholder inquiry into the cumulative effects of the oil sands expansion through the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. As well, we are looking for industrial agreements with all of our oil sands expansion proponents. We have looked for crown lands for development released to the municipality at no or nominal cost; one-time infrastructure grants for our unique circumstances; special infrastructure funds; modification of existing funding formulas; and an innovative tax strategy, something we've implemented to rebalance residential and non-residential taxation. Legislative tax class changes to the Alberta Municipal Government Act is another request we've made. We want a comprehensive socio-economic review of the impacts from all future oil sands developments through what we call our resource development review committee, and delivery of affordable housing in the region through an entity we created, called Wood Buffalo Housing and Development Corporation.
The reason I highlight these measures that we've taken is because the community right now is at a point where we don't have enough resources to proceed and continue. So in our appeal to you, and to virtually every other party that can make a difference, I would like to make the following recommendations.
The first thing is, when we look at opportunity, a regional tripartite development agreement, which would incorporate potential funding from three levels of government--the municipality, and federal and provincial governments.
We also think immediate special grant funding from both our federal and provincial governments to help bring our existing infrastructure and services to the same standards as other Alberta municipalities is a potential.
We also request the federal government's cooperation in creating and maintaining a system to analyze and monitor the cumulative socio-economic impacts of oil sands development, including verification of predictions and support for regular public communications.
And then finally, as another opportunity we would request the federal government's ongoing support and engagement in a bilateral intergovernmental relations program based on common interests, outcomes, and opportunities that flow from the oil sands development.
It's an awful lot to digest, and I'm certainly willing to answer any questions you have, but essentially we feel it's a very strategic investment for Canada.
Thank you.