Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Ottawa South.
I rise today to discuss how our government's budget would benefit rural Canada.
I am very fortunate to chair a strong rural caucus that is working hard to identify key issues and challenges that exist in rural Canada and lobby on behalf of those issues. Our caucus has identified three key issues that we feel are representative of rural Canada: first, digital infrastructure, whether it is cellular or broadband Internet; second, dedicated funding toward small rural communities; and third, economic investment and resources for small rural communities.
A transformation is happening in our society today that is synonymous with the transformation that happened in the late 1800s as we transitioned from the first wave of the industrial revolution to the second wave. Today we are going from the third wave to the fourth wave. Just as the transition at that time was a highly automated transition, it is as well today, where technology and automation are eliminating jobs far more quickly than creating them.
The catalyst at that time to drive entrepreneurialism was the national dream, the railroad. It connected our towns, our communities, our provinces, our country to nations across the world. It increased the level of productivity and it increased accessibility for our small entrepreneurs to be able to sell their products and services beyond their towns and villages.
We need a catalyst today that is similar to that. To me, digital infrastructure and economic development are those two catalysts. Digital infrastructure is important, whether it is providing the children of rural families with access to the Internet so that they can do their homework, or whether it is medicine being delivered through telemedicine facilities in remote regions, or once again, whether it is for our small entrepreneurs to be able to do their business beyond their front doors.
I have travelled a lot in my riding and have visited many innovative and creative individuals. They are passionate and focused on what they do but they are not necessarily all good at selling or marketing or branding themselves or dealing with finances. That is why we really need to be able to provide enterprise facilitation-type services, innovation hubs, incubation hubs, clusters to our entrepreneurs so that they can overcome the intimidation of starting their business or so they can access training and skills that they do not necessarily have, whether it is marketing, sales, or finance.
Our government is listening to individuals like Adrian Ellis and to organizations like the Eastern Ontario Regional Network or the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. We have delivered $500 million toward the digital infrastructure that all of these organizations and individuals have been clamouring for so they are able to deliver their products and services to a market far broader than just hanging a shingle on their doors.
Our government is listening and our government is getting the job done. We are investing $800 million into innovation centres, clusters, and incubation hubs, so that we can provide those skills and training, those facilitation services that so many of our entrepreneurs in rural areas desperately need.
We are also providing a $70-million investment to agricultural research and innovation. We are providing innovation funds for forestry, mining, and for many other sectors that will benefit in rural areas of our country and that will generate jobs and growth for our rural communities.
Tremendous infrastructure funding challenges exist in rural areas. The application process through the small community fund is daunting. The small community fund today is dedicated toward municipalities that have populations of 100,000 people or less.
In Canada, there are only 50 communities that have more than 100,000 people. There are close to 5,000 communities that have less than 100,000 people. How does a community of 1,000 people compete with a community of 100,000 people?
One of the challenges around the application process is that these communities do not have the internal resources to fill out these complex applications, and they do not have the financial resources to hire professional grant writers to be able to brand these resources.
Our government, once again, is listening to mayors, like Bernice Jenkins, when they say they are having problems putting their asset management plan together. Therefore, we are dedicating $50 million toward the generation of asset management plans to create a level playing field for small municipalities so that they are able to fill out these funding applications and once again be able to communicate the need that they have. At the end of day, these grants are awarded based on perceived need. If one cannot brand that need, then that need will not be perceived to be as high as that of someone who can brand that need.
Another part of the small community fund is the one-third, one-third, one-third: the one-third the municipality pays, the one-third the province pays, and the one-third the federal government pays. Once again, that is very difficult for small rural communities that have had highways downloaded on to them, like the mayor of Hastings Highlands, Vivian Bloom. That community has a piece of Highway 62, but the community had to reject the funding that it had received under the small community fund because it could not afford paying the one-third.
Our government, under this budget, will be relaxing that criteria. Once again, it will be dependent upon the financial situation of a municipality and the need to get the project done. Our government is going to be able to assist them in providing a greater portion of that funding.
Also, there is the problem for most communities of being shovel ready, like Deseronto, when Mayor Norm Clark needed to do a $7 million expansion to the water plant. The community needed to generate a $700,000 report just to be shovel ready. That was more than its whole budget. Once again, our government, in this budget, is relaxing that requirement.
There are so many aspects of this budget that will benefit rural Canada, such as the Canada child benefit, the middle-class tax cut, and the increase in the guaranteed income supplement.
My riding has one of the highest child poverty rates in the province, the second highest food insecurity rate in the province, and one of the highest unemployment rates. We need to put more money in the pockets of those who need it the most. What happens when we do that? They spend it in our local communities, which benefits our small businesses, which helps to create jobs, which helps to create growth.
If we do not trust that Canadians have the resourcefulness and are hard-working enough to invest in them, to give them the assurance that we trust them to invest in them, then who is going to? If the Government of Canada does not believe in Canadians, then who is going to believe in Canadians?
Now is the time to invest in Canada. The interest rates are low, and the debt-to-GDP rate is low. We need to invest in Canadians today to create the future jobs that will grow our communities and provide that income level to support our families.