Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-43, economic action plan 2014.
I want to step back for a moment. Three and a half years ago, I sought the nomination for the Conservative Party. At that time, I was not a political guru. Part of the nomination process was to go through the policies of the government. I read the Conservative policies and realized that they so applied to me. These were policies that spoke to caring for our families, supporting our businesses, ensuring that we are participants rather than observers in the global economy, caring for our seniors and our veterans, and promoting jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity, to name but a few.
Economic action plan 2014 builds on those policies and those initiatives. Today I want to focus a bit on those that are particularly important to northern Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie.
My history is in northern Ontario. I went to high school in North Bay, when my father was stationed there as part of the Canadian Armed Forces. I went to college in Sudbury and got a diploma from Cambrian College and then received a university degree from Laurentian University. I then moved to Sault Ste. Marie, where I reside now. I have been there for 33 years. During that tenure, I travelled all around northern Ontario as part of the Ontario March of Dimes, so I am very familiar with northern Ontario and its needs.
One of the most important components of the economic action plan is FedNor, which is the economic development fund for northern Ontario. It is a significant fund. The economic action plan continues to fund this program. It is a program that delivers programs that support innovation, sustainable community economic development, and business growth and competitiveness. Since 2006, $329 million has been funded through FedNor for 1,600 projects across northern Ontario that have created 21,000 jobs.
As part of economic action plan 2014, the minister announced what is called the targeted manufacturing fund, which is part of FedNor. This would provide financing for operational assessments and upgrading capital equipment. I encourage those who are watching at home to go to fednor.gc.ca to learn more about the programs offered through FedNor.
On December 4, the Minister for FedNor announced the community investment initiative for northern Ontario. This is a great initiative for rural municipalities and first nations communities that will facilitate staffing, the identification of opportunities, and the management of local economic development efforts to strengthen the economy and create jobs. Up to $100,000 per year is available over a three-year period for non-repayable financing toward staffing positions.
This agency has been incredible in Sault Ste. Marie. I just want to speak to a couple of the projects that have occurred in Sault Ste. Marie.
One is a company called JD Aero Maintenance. FedNor provided financing of $475,000 to assist it in its hanger development. As a result of that, it has created 28 jobs in Sault Ste. Marie, as JD Aero services the last Porter flight that comes into Sault Ste. Marie every evening.
Recently, $762,000 went to the Innovation Centre to deliver broadband e-business and marketing and innovation accelerator programs to enhance innovation, commercialization, management, and trade capacity for small and medium enterprises in northern Ontario over the next two years.
The Economic Development Corporation in Sault Ste. Marie just received $2.2 million. This is for an incredible new initiative in Sault Ste. Marie. A study done in 2013 by KPMG stated that the “economic and other benefits of the proposed harbour expansion are expected to be significant”. The report states that combined with anticipated production capacity increases by Sault Ste. Marie's steel products manufacturers, the expanded port would add as much as $228 million to Canada's GDP and would support up to 1,800 new employment positions as a result of the direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts. It would provide $262 million in economic activity generated by the infrastructure investments in the harbour and would support just under 1,400 person years of employment.
The project right now is in the process of establishing the critical path for port development. They are doing logistics, a market and commercial sensitivity analysis, a traffic forecast, and business planning and development. There is also port project infrastructure planning, design, and preparation, port logistics, and the preparation of the business case. That is what is really critical. Once that is done, the port project will apply to the new Building Canada fund. This is a national infrastructure component. This project is a $120-million to $150-million investment that will happen in Sault Ste. Marie.
That leads me to another component of economic action plan 2014 that is incredibly important to northern Ontario and to all of Canada, and that is the new Building Canada fund. The new Building Canada plan is the largest long-term infrastructure plan in Canadian history. It will provide stable funding for a 10-year period. It includes the community improvement fund, consisting of the gas tax fund and the incremental business services tax rebate for municipalities. This will provide $32 billion to municipalities for projects such as roads, public transit, recreational facilities, and other community infrastructure.
I spent eight years on city council in Sault Ste. Marie, and one of the biggest concerns was infrastructure funding. Through our gas tax fund, which we will increase by at least 2% per year, we have put $4.6 million a year for the past couple of years into that fund for major infrastructure projects for Sault Ste. Marie.
There will also be a $14 billion new Building Canada fund, which will consist of the $4 billion national infrastructure component that will support projects of national significant. For smaller communities, there is the $10 billion provincial-territorial infrastructure component for projects of national, regional, or local significance. Of this amount, $1 billion is dedicated to projects in communities such as Sault Ste. Marie, with populations of fewer than 100,000 residents.
An additional $1.25 billion will be put into the P3 public private partnership Canada fund, and that will go along with the $6 billion in funding that continues to flow across the country this year and beyond under existing infrastructure programs.
I want to talk a little bit about taxes. The average family of four, under our government, pays $3,400 a year less than when we formed government. We formed government in 2006. Since then, we have administered over 160 tax cuts, and most recently, under economic action plan 2014, we have done some incredible things for families.
The first is the universal child care increase. It was originally $100 per month. It would now go up to $160 per month. If a family has a child under six years of age, there would be $1,920 available to use as the family sees fit. We would also expand the program to include funds for children aged six to 17. We would put $60 a month into that program, so there would be an additional $720 a year available.
On top of that, we have introduced the family tax cut, which is geared towards couples with minor children. This would allow a transfer of up to $50,000 a year in income to the spouse in the lower tax bracket, and it would be capped at a $2,000 credit. We would also increase the child care expense deduction limit by $1,000 and double the fitness tax credit to $1,000 and make it refundable. These initiatives in economic action plan 2014 would put an average of $1,140 back into the pockets of families with children.
On top of that, we have introduced initiatives for empowering Canadian consumers, investing in skills and training, investing in Canada's youth, supporting small business, supporting seniors, supporting Canada's veterans, and supporting Canada's farmers.
I could go on and on. I am just very proud to stand here and talk about these policies that are so incredibly important to Canadians.