Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my pride in the City of Saint John and its partners for their groundbreaking application now submitted to the federal Smart Cities Challenge.
As members may know, Saint John was the only CMA in Canada to lose population in the 2016 census. Our smart cities team has developed a plan to use data and smart cities technology to boost immigration to our city. This will be accomplished through an advanced platform designed to be scalable to our sister cities, Moncton and Fredericton.
Population loss is a pressing and substantial challenge for Saint John—Rothesay. Giving community leaders like those who worked on this application the opportunity to implement innovative and transformational projects like this is one big step in the right direction for Saint John. I hope the jury will consider the national significance of this project when making its deliberations. I am proud to be part of a government that has given our city this tremendous opportunity.