Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise and contribute to this debate on the budget. The budget does have its critics. When we have critics on the left saying we have not spent enough and critics on the right saying we have spent too much, it indicates to me that we have hit the sweet spot. We have hit the balance that Canadians have come to expect between fiscal prudence and responsibility in fiscal management and our commitment to people, our commitment to health care, education and to communities. I think that when it comes to this debate, the Canadian people are far beyond where the opposition parties are on this one.
The opposition parties believe that there is a magic wand that can come in and address all the fiscal challenges we face as a country. I think the Canadian people know that it is a steady and committed progression we take, a commitment to debt retirement, to continue to pay down the debt that has been such a burden to the operation of the government, one that has been accrued over a number of years. We have kept our eye on that ball and will continue to keep working toward that.
I would like to speak about a number of things. I will get to as many as I can. First, my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona made some comments about coming up somewhat short on the learning agenda. I think there are some significant components to the budget that we have to celebrate. I think the learning bond is one that is going to pay dividends to young learners for years to come. The increase for low income families in the Canada education savings grant is significant, from 20% to 40%. As well, there are the new grants of up to $3,000 for first year tuition for members of low income families. I think that is to be commended. That is a significant commitment.
The member also made a comment on the millennium grants. I think that we here in the House have to respect the fact that aspects of education are the jurisdiction of the provinces. We did enter into the millennium program with the provinces and some provinces were more successful than others.
I know that in my home province of Nova Scotia we did not get the traction that we wanted with the students in Nova Scotia because the provincial government deemed that its key responsibility was capital investment in its post-secondary institutions, so that is where the millennium moneys ended up going, and not into the hands of the students. We have addressed that problem with the province's education department and we think that going forward it will be best served.
More specifically, what I want to identify is what was talked about in the House earlier today and that is this government's commitment to environmental remediation at contaminated sites. The amount of money that has been invested in this last budget is significant. It is $3.5 billion over 10 years to clean up contaminated sites. That is the single largest parcel of money that has ever been identified for environmental investments in Canada.
I speak first hand to this because my constituency borders on the riding of Sydney—Victoria. Every Canadian, I am sure, is aware of remediation of the Sydney tar ponds. My colleague from Elk Island posed the question of when we are going to get at the Sydney tar ponds. It is a question that my colleague from Sydney—Victoria and I have worked on continuously since we arrived here in Ottawa.
Last year it was identified in the budget. This year it was identified in the throne speech and in the budget and that money is being peeled out. Yes, there has to be an agreement struck with the province of Nova Scotia, the lead agency on the remediation, but we are working toward that.
Members should know that I live in a constituency where it is like having two Cape Bretons, one of which we know was just recently identified as the second most popular tourist destination in the world. Anyone who has driven along Highway 19 up the west coast of Cape Breton or toured the Cabot Trail or the Bras d'Or lakes knows the beauty of our island and our culture. It is a great destination for tourists. The other Cape Breton is what we have to deal with as elected officials and as a community, that is, the remnants of centuries. We have to deal with the remediation of what was left behind by our resource based industries, the coal and steel industries. The Sydney tar ponds problem is one of those remnants.
There has been work done. We have had successes. I think we have a great grasp of the extent of the damage and the remediation that has to be done. This has been studied, and some say studied to death. Technologies have been identified that can do the job and clean the site. We have them short-listed and are ready to select them now.
Some of the projects have been done. The capping of the landfill site has been completed. We are seeing evidence of that now in some of the testing of the surface water and groundwater. It is making a difference and it is a significant difference.
We fully understand this challenge. We are so pleased with the success we have achieved and the support we have received from our caucus colleagues, the members on the government side, in getting us over the goal line. We know that before we can grow economically and socially as a community the problem with the tar ponds has to be addressed.
The Government of Nova Scotia is in the midst of its budget deliberations. It is ready to present a budget. There is some jockeying going on with the final agreement, but let us be realistic. The province operated the site for 30 years and was the regulator over the site for years beyond that, so it is time that the province buckled down and got the job done. The money is there from the federal government. We recognize that the Province of Nova Scotia cannot do the heavy lifting by itself. We are there for the province, but let us sit down and get it done.
There are a couple of other things I want to touch on that come right back to our community. We now are seeing the benefits within our community of some of the investments that have been made through the universities in knowledge and commercialization of knowledge.
We have some great research going on right now at the University College of Cape Breton in conjunction with the National Research Council. The Government of Canada, through its three federal granting councils, will invest $90 million this year. As well, $20 million per year will help cover indirect costs of university research.
When we speak to the presidents of the universities from Atlantic Canada, they come to us with the following. They say yes, they want to engage in the research. They see the benefit of engaging in the research and they see the potential it holds for our economy, but they also see the costs of engaging in that research. We think this money is going to pay dividends and encourage those institutions to partner with private sector companies to allow that research to come forward through commercialization.
Currently the research being done at UCCB and with the National Research Council is in wireless communications. The specific project is the remote and wireless application of that communication on oil rigs and how switch boxes can be handled through wireless communication as opposed to a hard ground feed.
There are another couple of aspects of the budget that I think are worth noting. One is the acceleration of the infrastructure program. We have seen some great green projects since the Government of Canada has invested in infrastructure: the Glace Bay water treatment plant, the Port Hawkesbury and Port Hastings water and sewer project, sewage treatment in St. Peter, and the water project at Arichat. They are typical of the programs on which we have been able to partner with the province and the municipalities.
We think that by accelerating this program the benefit will be to the municipal units. It is an investment in economic development. There are a lot of dollars changing hands. We are very pleased with that aspect of the budget as well.