Good morning. I'm pleased to be here to give the presentation this morning.
For those who aren't familiar with us, SARM represents all of the 296 rural municipalities in the province. The membership is voluntary.
I have a 10-minute presentation that I'm going to cut to five minutes. I will make sure that everybody on the committee has our deposition. I'll touch on the highlights.
I want to answer question number one and to talk briefly this morning about mutual aid agreements and emergency response funds. This is because of the fact that municipalities are reliant on service agreements with businesses, local land owners, parks, and first nations. First nations communities often do not have their own emergency service providers.
We're making a pitch to the federal government and to the Province of Saskatchewan that there be an emergency response set up. That would provide the first responders and the emergency firefighters, who are often volunteers, with a fund to make sure they are covered not only for a liability, but also covered for reimbursement of their costs.
We also think that with any surplus funds at the end of each year, a fund could be recreated to be used to build local infrastructure, including first nations infrastructure, and to give them the capacity to respond to emergencies as well.
I want to talk briefly to question number two and mention the farm support program AgriStability. I know that Chairman Easter is familiar with that program. We're now talking about Growing Forward 3, the next phase of farm support. We're asking the federal government to reinstate the margin levels back to 85%. They've been lowered to 70%. We're concerned about that. We're asking the government to reinstate the margin levels to where they were before. We're also asking the same with AgriInvest. We're asking the federal government to take away the cap and to reinstate it to its previous coverage.
Broadband obviously is really important to rural Saskatchewan. We're pleased that the federal government has put up $500 million for rural Canada to enhance the coverage in rural and remote communities around the country. We feel that it needs to be carried further. Without a reliable connection, it's often difficult to participate in the Canadian economy, as so much is found online now. The result is that many rural Saskatchewan people aren't able to meet their economic potential. So we're asking the federal government to update the current tier 4 service areas that are home to numerous economic drivers, and to cover larger areas. These areas have sparse populations, so we're asking for them to receive adequate service.
We also believe that there should be increased collaboration between the federal government and each province and territory, so it's necessary to come up with a plan for service that takes each province's population and geography into account. And, of course, the definition of “rural” is not the same across Canada.
Finally, the government should ensure that any spectrum allocated for rural areas that is unused by an Internet service provider for two years after acquisition be accessible to Internet service providers who are willing to bring service to rural areas. That's called the “use it or lose it” provision.
To answer the third question, I want to talk a bit a about phase two and the new building Canada fund, particularly the small communities fund. We realize that the federal government has already committed to at least 50% funding. So we're asking our province to kick in 25%, which leaves 25%. For any federal priority project that is also a municipal priority under a federal program, we're asking for a different split. We're asking for 35% for the province, which would leave 15% for rural municipalities. We also feel that the threshold for small communities should not be the same across Canada, because the number that is used now is 100,000 and we want the federal government to realize that we're asking here in Saskatchewan that the threshold be lowered to 4,999, which is below the threshold for a city. So it puts the villages and the towns, the rural municipalities and the small urban centres, all in the same pool.
Under the disaster financial assistance arrangements and natural disaster mitigation, we're asking that the federal government undertake a thorough review of the DFAA guidelines. More importantly, SARM is requesting funding to municipalities for disaster-related mitigation and recovery, which are very important.
These initiatives are realistic and, in summary, we think that they will help to grow our economy while ensuring that environmental sustainability occurs. Whether it is with regard to the need for stable farm income support to assist middle class families in Saskatchewan, disaster assistance to help the most vulnerable, or increased infrastructure investment to help employ first nations in our communities and to ensure the consistent and reliable movement of grain across the Prairies to get our exports to market, we look forward to a continued dialogue to help support families and communities in Saskatchewan.
In closing I have one further remark to make. I know this has been the hot topic in the news lately and I just want the committee to know that SARM is really concerned about the possibility of having a carbon tax of some sort imposed on our province. We believe—and we've been very vocal about this—this could affect the average-sized farmer in our province who has between 2,500 acres and 3,000 acres. It could impose a tax of $10,000. This is a concern of ours because we feel farmers are already sequestering carbon. They're doing a good job with zero till right now and they should be credited, not penalized.
That brings my remarks to an end. Thank you very much for your time.