Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is David Seabrook. I'm the assistant director of growth and community services for the City of Fredericton and responsible for economic development and tourism.
The City of Fredericton thanks the Standing Committee on Finance for the opportunity to present to you today. We believe it's very timely because we would like to address a strategic focus, which is investing in small and medium-sized cities. We believe strongly that a significant portion of Canada's economic growth will come from these small and medium-sized cities. We have a lower cost of living, lower cost of doing business, lower housing costs, and excellent quality of life, all of which can drive economic growth in Canada's future.
It's also worth noting that small and medium-sized cities are great opportunities for the federal government to pilot programs and investments as we have seen with the world-leading Siemens smart grid investments with New Brunswick Power.
Here in Fredericton, we are indeed growing. Our economy is expanding, our population is growing. Studies indicate very significant growth in our population over the next two decades. Immigration will be a key factor in our growth and it's essential that we understand the profound linkages between immigration and economic growth as they pertain to small and medium-sized cities in Atlantic Canada.
We need to invest to ensure that we create the correct conditions for immigrants and newcomers to adapt to our culture, find jobs, and buy businesses. In fact, the federal government just recently funded a succession planning matching program here in Fredericton with the Chamber of Commerce, which you probably heard about when our Chamber of Commerce CEO presented. It is key to matching immigrants with Canadians who are looking to retire and sell their businesses. That's one way we can support immigration in Atlantic Canada.
Jobs and economic growth in our area will largely be driven by a dynamic culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in our community. We are one of Canada's leading start-up communities, and it is essential that the federal government invest to facilitate the growth of these entrepreneurial companies that are prepared to export beyond New Brunswick to the rest of Canada, and in fact, the rest of the world.
We believe this first means investing in infrastructure, transportation infrastructure in particular, and investments aimed at expanding the Fredericton International Airport. Again, I believe our CEO from the Chamber of Commerce has already discussed this, but the city of Fredericton's international airport is one of six NAS airports across the country currently ineligible for federal funding to expand. It's currently 75% over capacity. We anticipate further growth. We have new airlines coming into the marketplace, and essentially we have a bureaucratic barrier to prevent funding of that expansion, which is shovel ready and ready to go now. It's essential for the growth of this community, so we would ask that you pay particular attention to the barriers in that particular funding scenario.
Just as important is investment into our digital infrastructure to ensure our knowledge-based companies have the ability to work with, and export to, the world. We need to invest in the innovation infrastructure at our universities. This includes research chairs and applied research institutes.
Such investments should recognize that communities can become clusters of targeted economic growth in specific communities with specific clusters, and recognizing where we have expertise. In Fredericton, that's knowledge industries, innovation associated with natural resources, and the developing cybersecurity cluster.
It's also tourism. We would advocate that continued investment in Destination Canada, allowing it to expand its current U.S. program beyond a select number of cities to provide a wider range of cross-border travel, is key, and also investment in Canada's festival and events sector through the application by Festivals and Major Events Canada for $30 million to support that sector. There were great investments recently in culture, but they didn't come down to those that actually generate tourism and economic activity through the festival sector.
With that, I'll pass it over to my colleague, Larry Shaw, from Ignite Fredericton.