Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee.
It's great to come from rural Alberta to talk about what I think is this critically important conversation today. Alberta is a province of immigrants. Rural Alberta is a province of immigrants. At the same time, it is our belief that all rural folks are rural folks.
I had a fantastic conversation with a gentleman from Pakistan, who was marvelling about rural Alberta. He said, “I have to get back to the spaces. I'm living in downtown Montreal, and I need to get back to the spaces again.” I think that's what we need to talk about. At the same time, what comes with that is a need for supports.
The fact is, Alberta right now is moving forward and is coming out with an immigration strategy, and we have talked to the provincial minister related to that, Mr. Copping. Two things coming out of that program are a rural renewal immigration stream, which is really looking at pilots for municipalities to get on board to see if we can bring in immigrant investment, and immigrant workers as well, and encouraging new residents to settle in certain areas.
The key message to rural Alberta is that we are alive and well; we're moving quite quickly. What comes with that is some depopulation, and we have some demographic conversations that come with this, so this conversation is critically important to us.
What I'm excited about, though, is the rural entrepreneur stream that's being pushed by the provincial government. The rural entrepreneur stream is really about encouraging growing businesses in rural Alberta and having a conversation with rural Albertans whereby you can actually look for the opportunities to be found within rural Alberta. Making those connections between local businesses, whether they're existing businesses or new businesses that have been created, is a fantastic opportunity. We have many businesses in rural Alberta, mom-and-pop operations or bigger businesses, and immigrant investment and entrepreneurial investment in those can really be favourable to rural Alberta.
We ultimately have a lot of programs in place for those supports, and that's the big conversation. Obviously rural Alberta has a different culture from some of the urban areas, so it's about ensuring that those supports are in place. That's a key message about what can be done to make people successful in rural Alberta
We are diverse and forward-thinking as rural Albertans, and one of the really big conversations is tied to the fact that we're looking at ways to diversify our economy, and our communities as well. Rural Albertan municipalities are home to 18% of the four million people who live in Alberta. However, we contribute to 24% of the GDP of the province of Alberta. Rural Albertans punch above our weight, and bringing immigrants into that opportunity and ensuring that we can leverage that is very important to us as well.
Really, the sustainability of rural Alberta is tied to attracting that qualified workforce, to providing community services and making sure they have programs in place to retain those workers, those families, those people who want to move to rural Alberta as well. Those community services are really linked to that rural economic and community development conversation. The funding for services makes municipalities as attractive as possible, and as surprising as it is, we need to look at rural schools, family and community support services and policing.
Interestingly, the conversation around immigration is tied to broadband. We have digital poverty in some parts of rural Alberta, so bridging that gap for broadband will allow the immigrants to move to rural Alberta and pursue opportunities there. This is essential to rural community building, which involves immigration, entrepreneurs and attracting a workforce as well.
I can talk quite a bit about specific Alberta programs, but I'm getting close to my five minutes here.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak today and will gladly answer any questions that are brought up by the chair or members. Thank you.