Mr. Speaker, that is a hard act to follow.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the budget implementation act. I also want to thank the constituents of the great Kenora riding for their ongoing support of the great work that the government has been doing in our vast region of more than 326,760 square kilometres.
We have 8 municipalities and 42 first nations communities, 25 of them not accessible by road. Suffice it to say, there was a lot of work that needed to be done and we were very grateful for Canada's economic action plan. I will talk a little about phase one today before I get into phase two in appreciation of some of the great things that have gone on in our region.
Pre-emptively it is worth saying that northwestern Ontarians were very familiar with the recession. We plunged into it long before most other parts of Canada. The forest sector took a very hard hit well before the rest of the country plunged into recession.
As we moved through Canada's economic action plan and started to get strategic about what investments needed to be made in Kenora, we found there were structural challenges with which Canada's economic action plan helped Kenora. I will talk about them in just a few minutes.
In phase one we had very few, if any, of our mills open. There was one left in Dryden, but unfortunately the paper production of that mill had disappeared and we needed to take action as mills were closing around the region. The Mayor of Red Lake said that there may be some sort of gold boom on, but it was not being experienced per se by folks in Red Lake, Cochenour and Balmertown.
The complement of towns that form the municipality of Red Lake were under siege. They were stretched to their limits. Getting a hotel in Red Lake would mean booking it months in advance because people were there for long-term stays. The commercial, residential and industrial capacity of the town simply was not there.
We got to work and started to build industrial and commercial development sites in Dryden and Red Lake. We felt confident that we would come out of this recession stronger than ever. Short of fixing a couple of key structural defects, Canada's economic action plan was going to make the difference.
I will give a couple of examples of that, ones that I take very seriously. I have a great deal of pride in working with town and city officers to make these dreams come true.
In Dryden, under the green pulp and paper transformation program, the federal government was able to grant just over $22 million to make capital upgrades to the environmental capacity of the processing that took place to make a world-class kind of pulp. Previously, the mill had been at 85% energy self-sustainability through its residual liquor production, but to be effective environmentally and to be a mill that the region, Canada and Domtar could depend on moving forward that number had to go up.
The green pulp and paper transformation program came in, and I am happy to report today that as of December 1 of this year, when the final phase of the installation is complete, the prediction is that it will be at more than 110% energy self-sufficient. That is great news. We are taking care of the environment and correcting a structural defect that we faced in northwestern Ontario.
The failure of our provincial counterparts to provide a competitive industrial hydro rate was a challenge for mills and any sort of production that would go on, and continues to go on. We were able to fix that.
We recently heard from AbitibiBowater and the city officials in Ignace with whom I have worked very closely. My colleague from Beauce and I had an opportunity to open a new water treatment facility there and make some upgrades as a result of some unforeseen challenges which the tundra posed. Ignace is going to have a brand new mill. It is actually an old mill, but it is going to be rehabilitated and it will be, as the officials from AbitibiBowater told me, like new. This is going to employ 100 people in Ignace within the next couple of years as the mill is rehabilitated.
They were able to do this because the city officials and AbitibiBowater felt comfortable with the great work that we had done with the foundational infrastructure pieces, such as resurfacing roads in that area and rebuilding or replacing major parts of the water and waste water treatment facility. I could go on but these are important things that Canada's economic action plan brought.
I could talk about the beautiful city of Kenora which even some of us locals are having trouble recognizing because there are so many new great facilities to celebrate our harbourfront and welcome people from around the world to our magnificent world-class city.
As I only have three or four more minutes left, I want to jump into the final part of my discussion on the budget implementation bill.
I will highlight very quickly a few of the things we are sensitive to in northwestern Ontario. Obviously there are the hiring credits for small businesses and tax support for clean energy generation. I mentioned the mill and the great work that was done. There is the mineral exploration tax credit. The ring of fire, the chromite in northwestern Ontario, represents an opportunity for first nations communities and non-first nations communities. It is one of the largest chromite reserves known to the world to date. On the gas tax fund, I was told by mayor after mayor that they were relieved that not only did we double it, but the $2 billion permanent annual investment would provide predictable long-term funding for municipalities. This is no small practical or intellectual matter. Municipalities are going to be able to use this legislated guaranteed resource as another instrument to manage their municipal affairs.
The wage earner protection program provides up to $3,400 in 2011 to workers for unpaid wages, severance or termination. We are helping families with caregiver tax credits. That can be a special burden in the smaller towns of northwestern Ontario. There is the children's art tax credit. We are removing the limit on claimable medical expenses. These are things that matter to northwestern Ontarians and all Canadians.
I want to talk about a couple of things that are making a real difference. We are forgiving the debt for doctors and nurses serving in underserved communities. The entire Kenora region is underserved in this regard. In my prior career I worked to recruit physicians. I was a nurse working in those communities. I can fully appreciate the challenges we have, but is it not great that when new doctors and nurses come out of school and if they move to our communities, they will be able to have significant portions of their debt relieved. We are very pleased with that. I encourage all my colleagues to support this policy.
We are helping apprentices in skilled trades. We are going to be twinning the Trans-Canada Highway from the Manitoba border in. HRSDC has played an important role in helping to provide the kind of skills training people will need to help in twinning that highway.
In closing, there are a number of things which have been discussed at length here today. I wanted to highlight some of the things that are particularly important to northwestern Ontario and to thank the government for the great work that it continues to do for the great Kenora riding.
