Thank you so much, Chair.
Hello, colleagues. Boozhoo. Aaniin. As-salaam alaikum. I'm on Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory and I'm speaking from my basement in Peterborough—Kawartha. I'm grateful for the study you're doing and the opportunity to speak with you today about infrastructure accessibility and its contribution to the overall success of our communities.
I know that this year has been a really difficult one for everybody on my screen, and for your families and your teams, and I know that you know that it has been incredibly difficult for Canadians. The pandemic has disproportionately affected women and those who were already vulnerable, such as low-wage workers, young people and racialized Canadians. Like my parliamentary secretary, Gudie Hutchings, I want to salute everybody on the front lines of the fight against COVID, particularly our friends and colleagues from Newfoundland and Labrador who are coming into Ontario to help us with this difficult and virulent third wave.
The pandemic has reminded us of how vital our connections are.
Bridges, broadband, roads, waterways and community centres connect us, and we're stronger when we're connected to the people and the services that matter to us. COVID has magnified gaps in services and in the infrastructure available for specific populations, including in rural communities. Our government has been working to address infrastructure gaps in every community in this country since we formed government, and our infrastructure plan is working. Five years in, we are 40% of the way through this 12-year plan, and we have delivered over 40% of the funding available.
The investing in Canada infrastructure program includes over $180 billion in investments; 3,400 projects have been approved so far, including more than 2,000 projects just this past fiscal year during the pandemic.
Let me thank my officials and my team who, like you, are working from home. Their service delivery standards have not missed a beat. Within 20 to 60 business days, we moved these important projects forward for communities. I am so grateful to get to work with them. There have been 3,400 approved so far, with more than 2,000 in this past fiscal year, and with over 1,000 projects in this committee's 13 ridings.
In rural communities, more than $3.2 billion has been invested under the rural and northern stream, which is specifically dedicated to supporting rural communities and making investments in broadband, water, roads and community centres across the country. I want to thank the Liberal rural caucus for advocating for this separate stream and for bringing back the rural economic development secretariat through their advocacy.
This is a big step forward for Canadians living in rural, remote and indigenous communities.
It's a big step forward. These investments create jobs, more than 100,000 jobs each year, and improve our quality of life. The result is that more Canadians have access to high-speed Internet. More have access to clean air and clean water. Our communities are safer, more resilient and more inclusive.
These investments are important in rural communities.
They're important. These are strategic investments that create growth, fight climate change and build inclusive communities. They're more important now than ever.
You saw that the federal gas tax fund—which we intend to rename, by the way, the Canada community-building fund—is making a difference in communities across the country. To help ease the crunch of the pandemic, as per requests from municipal leaders, in 2020 we delivered the whole year's $2.2 billion in gas tax fund to municipalities.
More needs to be done. Budget 2021 includes our plans to conquer COVID, get Canadians back to work and build back better. That includes broadband as well as social infrastructure like housing and child care and supports for sectors hit hardest by COVID such as tourism.
There is a $6.2 billion investment already in place for broadband, and Budget 2021 added an additional $1 billion to this important fund. There are investments to go ahead with our national infrastructure survey. Of course, we're proposing to double last year's gas tax fund payment, just as we did in June 2020, and to provide the full 2021-22 amounts in one payment instead of the usual two installments.
Mr. Chair, I see your hand is up. Is that a signal that my time is up?