Thank you.
I wanted to give you a little bit of history on Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association, why it came to be. We were actually incorporated in May 1998 and became operational in January 1999. What's important is that prior to that, between 1993 and 1998, we worked very closely with the industry. This in fact was an industry-driven initiative, wanting the municipalities to come together and get some common regulations, guidelines for industries to exist.
We encompass five municipalities, and each municipality at the time had different municipal development plans, area structure plans, etc., and different rules. It was making it difficult for industries that worked in one and had pipelines going to another for the regulations. That was very much a local impact, getting the local industries—and these are mega-players, your Dow, Shell, Sherritt—coming together to incorporate or to have municipalities incorporate this.
I sent a map to you. I don't know if you received it or not. I'm assuming you did. It gives you the geographic outline of the heartland. We are 582 square kilometres, zoned heavy industrial primarily, with of course some conservation area and buffer zones in there.
We presently have 48 industries existing in the area. They employ over 7,500 staff, full-time and contractors, and the majority are very highly skilled and trained employees—the managers, the operators, the PhDs, etc. Based on the multiplier effect of one to four, that's equivalent to about 30,000 jobs directly and indirectly created just due to the industries. That's not including the different positions such as engineering EMPs, the maintenance, the turnarounds, etc.
In terms of value of job creation, revenue generation, it's very important within the Alberta context and of course the greater Edmonton region.
In addition, on the map, we also have 20 land holdings that folks are holding onto. They purchased land back in 2003, 2008. Suncor, Petro-Canada, etc. are looking to build their upgraders. A lot of those have been deferred right now. Hopefully something will happen on those lands as well, because we have the potential of creating another 2,000 to 4,000 jobs, excluding the construction jobs.
We do work very closely with our province, our provincial government, with Alberta Energy, Finance and Enterprise, Environment, and Intergovernmental Relations.
I'll pass back to Neil for an overview of Heartland again.