Thank you, and good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Briefly, the County of Athabasca is a municipality where we don't have any really novel suggestions; we have a continuation of what we have seen occur over the last couple of years, principally with the new deal for funding for infrastructure.
The county has recently taken advantage of the program. Thanks to the new deal program, we have been awarded roughly $3 million of federal money for a road overlay project. Particularly important--and I've been on council since 2001--I think the amount of federal money we have availed ourselves of in that period of time has been negligible. Just in the last year we got $3 million for the road overlay project. I think the Town of Athabasca, within its boundaries, got over a million dollars for a lagoon, and the Village of Boyle got roughly $4 million for upgrades to a hockey arena. So these funds coming at a time when the costs of these projects have been skyrocketing due to inflation is extremely vital.
In the last three years, the overlay job we're doing has gone from around $6 million to over $12 million. Thanks to the federal programs, the new deal and the Build Canada programs help take up some of the cost of inflation. So it is the county's opinion that ongoing federal support for infrastructure requirements in the $10 billion per year range nationwide is warranted.
The county's second suggestion is for more commercialization of research and development by making investment in scientific research and experimental development a refundable tax credit to stimulate increased private sector investment. The long-term financial health of the county requires a transition to a knowledge- and technological-based economy and away from a resource-based economy. While Canada is blessed with a cornucopia of resources, the long-term wealth of the country will be based on developing the intellectual and creative capacity of Canadians, who will develop the future technologies, processes, and knowledge required to meet the needs of Canada and the world. In the future world economy, Canada is competing with countries that, lacking our resource base, heavily promote the development of their human capital. To compete with these countries in a future world economy in green energy, nanotechnologies, and nano-cellulose products, the federal budget needs to actively promote private research and development by making the scientific research and experimental development tax credit refundable.
We have the world's fastest growing university within our boundaries--Athabasca University, a correspondence and long-distance learning institute--with in excess of 30,000 students enrolled. They have actually started an Athabasca River research study, and we're hoping to build a centre for river-based research in conjunction with that. The county and Athabasca University are good partners.
Our third suggestion for the 2010 federal budget is directed towards agricultural support and is related to the second point above. Developing new product lines for consumption and export is vitally important to an export-oriented industry. Two federal government programs--AgriInvest and AgriStability--have been of assistance to producers, especially during this recent year of drought and grasshoppers. The county strongly supports the increase of $1 billion annually in the levels of core funding and to applied research associations and forage associations.
In conjunction with previous presenters from Fort McMurray on having Highway 63 go through the length of our county, the federal government's commitment of $150 million to the twinning of Highway 63--it was a few years ago, 2006, I think, that it was committed--is greatly appreciated, because we have volunteer ambulance people who have to tend to the carnage on that highway on a daily basis. Twinning it is for safety. It is the engine of growth, certainly in Alberta, if not in the country. The federal government recognizing that as a national highway was greatly appreciated. So thank you.