I appreciate being here today. Thank you to the committee and thank you, Chair.
I represent 85% of the land base in the province of Alberta, including 69 municipalities. We have 15% of the population and contribute 26% to the GDP and 44% of capital investment. We are stewards of the air, the water and food security. These are all critical issues that I deal with from a rural standpoint.
To MP Hallan, I grew up in Marlboro. Go figure. I moved back to the farm and married a Burlington girl, so I'm connected to everybody here, I think.
The message I have for you folks has to do with understanding the journey we are on. Rural connectivity is a critical and pivotal piece of the investment piece. Going back to the conversation related to investment, rural connectivity is critical. We do appreciate the announced investments, but the flow of money has not met the need. Alberta has actually been terribly behind and only about 35% of rural Alberta has broadband that actually matches the expectations.
We need to have these investments a little quicker and continue these investments, because Alberta is terribly behind. There are really the unserved folks, the rural remote folks who are the most unserved.
I want to talk about resilient rural communities. You have to love Alberta. Five of the 10 largest insurance claims for weather-induced events have occurred in the province of Alberta. If you go to Lloyd's of London, they know exactly where Alberta is, whether it's related to a fire, a flood or you name it.
I want to talk a little bit about resilient communities with respect to looking at disaster recovery to build back better. “Like for like” has been the model, but communities, especially small communities, need to have those core investments to understand what the risks are and the risk mitigations for these weather-induced events. It's critically important.
I represent a low population and a large land base. The municipalities I represent actually have more responsibility, with 65% of the roads in the province of Alberta and 55% of the bridges, but we have low population and that is due to the small towns that are near us. This rural infrastructure conversation is one of our biggest issues. As a municipal councillor and the reeve of Ponoka County, I have 10,000 people, and I actually have a $170-million bridge liability among those 10,000 people, because we have the responsibility for those bridges.
We are required to replace this infrastructure—and again I go back to the conversation related to weather-induced events—if we do have a situation where we're having a disaster such as a fire or flood. The good folks in Edson had both and got evacuated twice. This is a stark reality we are dealing with, and building this resilient infrastructure is an important conversation. I won't lie to you, folks: The Government of Alberta is starting to assert itself, much as other provincial governments have, in that they are trying to break the relationship or any type of relationship between municipalities and the federal government. They are actively doing so.
I'm very concerned about that, because although we are children of the provincial government, I don't like being treated like a child. We do amazing things with our low population. We take care of an incredible amount of infrastructure that's extremely cost-effective. It is really important to ensure that we have this conversation and we create this relationship to create a better rural Alberta.
Ultimately—I am also on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities—this is all across Canada. Rural communities work hard. They need a hand up, and they need some help that way as well.
One final piece I want to touch on is the policy piece: someone writing cheques with our butts but we're not at the table. Retroactive RCMP pay has been a huge blow to small municipalities across Canada. I know we can't go back in a wayback machine, but that policy choice and those choices made on retroactive pay have caused undue harm to many municipalities.
We're trying to do more with less, and those types of policy choices that provide that downloading of negotiated fees to municipalities are critically important. It's a big issue for a lot of municipalities because we're doing more with less.
I'm the president of Rural Municipalities of Alberta. My two top issues are health care and policing, but my responsibility is roads and bridges. That is a stark communication on really where we're at as a society, and we need to have this conversation.
Thank you so much.