Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the committee for providing me with the opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of the people of Corner Brook.
Federal infrastructure funding is of immense importance to our community. Before I speak about the specifics of our situation as a municipality, I would like to mention one notable, recent project in our community.
Corner Brook was founded on the development of our pulp and paper mill almost 100 years ago, and we are now a modern government services centre for the west coast of Newfoundland, with a campus of Memorial University and a burgeoning tourism sector. That said, our paper mill is still uniquely important to our community and our regional economy.
We have a deep-water port here in the city. For many years, it was underutilized for industrial purposes, but two years ago we were able to secure funding through the national trade corridors fund to purchase container-handling equipment, including a new crane. This enabled us to attract a new international container service to the port, which would have our mill as an anchor tenant.
When COVID-19 hit last spring, the newsprint market, of course, in the U.S. disappeared almost overnight. This was a disaster for our mill. However, our investment in our port saved the day. Container service commenced in May 2020, allowing our mill to reach new markets, support a more diversified client base and reduce shipping costs overall. Our mill prevailed against the additional impacts of COVID-19, outsurviving many global competitors. This success is largely due to a relatively small $5.5-million investment from the federal government, and I would like to thank MP Gudie Hutchings for her support on this file.
As a city of approximately 20,000 people, we are able to sustain our operations through responsible fiscal management. However, we rely on federal and provincial partners for help when it comes to the development and maintenance of our extensive municipal infrastructure.
Each year we fund our infrastructure development primarily through the following sources: provincial, multi-year capital funding; the gas tax, of course; the ICIP; and ad hoc funds through Infrastructure Canada like the new Canada healthy communities initiative and through programs through the ACOA and the FCM.
We typically use our multi-year, provincial funding and our gas tax funding on our “must have” or “can't wait” projects, like water and sewer upgrades, and road investment and repair. ICIP funds and other funds are used typically for bigger projects or “nice to have” projects. Since we can't count on any specific project getting funded through those latter streams, we either have to tolerate potential delays on those projects or have backup funding.
We have experienced a few challenges with the ICIP that I would like to inform you about. As it is project-based, there is little predictability as to which projects get funded. The bilateral nature of the funding has led to some misunderstandings on eligible costs between the province and the federal government at Infrastructure Canada. Finally, the ICIP seems to be unable to accommodate many large-scale projects within the overall funding categories. For example, we are currently pursuing a $90-million waste-water treatment facility, and at the current annual allocations, this project, should it get funded, would exhaust the entire annual green-infrastructure ICIP allocation for the province. Therefore, it's unlikely to get funded.
We would like to make a couple of recommendations when it comes to any federal funding. Specifically, we would like the government enhance the flexible and predictable models of infrastructure funding for municipalities. We were really glad to see another proposal to double the gas tax this year. As a regional centre, per-capita funding mightn't be the most progressive funding model—we sustain more infrastructure on a per-capita basis—but we would be happy to tolerate that minor inequity for the flexibility and predictability that the gas tax model affords a mature, responsible municipality like ours.
Also, we would like to see more highly targeted, large-scale funding for regional priority projects. I mentioned waste-water treatment. If this is, indeed, a priority for the federal government, we would like to see a clear funding path. We would gladly do our share to build reserves and would incur debt, if it is necessary, as long as we can get a commitment and a clear path forward from our federal and provincial partners.
Thank you very much.