Thanks, Jennifer.
I'm going to talk a bit about carbon pricing, a topic that is familiar to all of you and a hot topic across the country. Business and industry remain committed to moving toward a low-carbon economy, with innovation and ingenuity being applied in support of this across many sectors. Island businesses agree that a reduction in our carbon emissions is a priority, with the impacts of climate change a current reality rather than a future problem. With that, we feel it's important for government to recognize the complex nature of emissions and environmental regulations across the country. Provincial economies have different components and competitors that require different solutions.
At 1.8 megatonnes, P.E.I.’s carbon footprint is 0.25% of the national amount. The chamber is confident in island businesses’ ability to care for the environment without punitive tax measures. Therefore, we recommend that the federal government allow provinces to explore incentives to reduce carbon emissions before implementing the federal carbon pricing backstop policy. We certainly acknowledge the federal government implementing a carbon pricing backstop policy, and thus, if it is deemed necessary, implementing one pricing structure that would be revenue-neutral for business, that is, a tax shift rather than a tax increase.
I want to touch on a topic that was referenced by our colleagues at Bulk Carriers, and that is skill shortage as it relates to population growth. Our regional population growth and addressing our local labour challenges in Atlantic Canada are of particular importance. Our small population is susceptible to future skills and labour shortages and sees population growth as an avenue to address some of these problems. The issue of accessing labour is among our members' top priorities and directly links to their competitiveness.
Certainly the chamber recognizes our collective responsibility—business, communities and governments—to support population growth and workforce developments. I'll highlight one program that was recently launched, the P.E.I. network program. With support from IRCC and the provincial government, the chamber launched this program, which connects business and community leaders with P.E.I.'s newest top talent. The program is being offered in more than 20 cities across Canada, seeing newcomers build their network, in support of lifting their names off the pages of their resumés. We've already seen success in just a short time on this project.
I'll also note that the Atlantic immigration pilot program has helped address some skills challenges in the region, and it has seen excellent uptake among employers in P.E.I., with allocations of spaces in our province being fully subscribed over the last two years. We also want to note that we welcomed the news of the 500 additional spaces that were recently announced for this program. Given this marked success, we would point to the need to consider making the Atlantic immigration pilot program permanent.
In closing, I want to touch on federal finances. In budget 2018, we registered projected deficits of over $18 billion and the lack of a plan to move to a balanced budget in the near future. The concern is that the budget did not put Canada in a position to appropriately respond to uncertainty, to headwinds like those we've seen over the last year of negotiations on things like NAFTA, or to a possible downturn in our national economy. For this reason, we recommend that the federal government set annual targets for balanced budgets, or conditions permitting a surplus, subject to recessionary conditions, indicating a requirement for deficit spending to stimulate economic activity.
That summarizes our presentation. We thank you for the opportunity and welcome any questions you may have.
Thank you.