May 28, 2010

On Friday, May 28th, Brian Jean hosted a Northern Alberta Hospitality Suite at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Annual Conference in Toronto.  The purpose of the event was to highlight Fort McMurray – Athabasca and to provide a venue for Conservative MPs to meet their municipal leaders from across the country.

The event was extremely well attended, with approximately 300 people stopping by throughout the evening.  Mr. Jean was thrilled that 25 local Mayors, Reeves and Councillors attended the Conference and he was pleased to speak with several of them personally at the reception. 

“We need to inform the rest of the country of the reality of our situation in Fort McMurray – Athabasca.  So often people speak of the oilsands in a negative context, but they do not really understand the scope of the operation that is being undertaken here and of the good, responsible environmental work that the oil companies are doing,” said Mr. Jean.  “Our region provides 6% of Canada’s GDP and creates over 250,000 direct jobs throughout Canada.  What you hear through the grapevine is not always a reality.  This is the main message that I wanted to share with all of the delegates at this conference.”

In addition to promoting his riding, Mr. Jean was also happy to summarize some of the Conservative Government’s stimulus investments in infrastructure including:

• Over $2.8 billion committed through the Major Infrastructure Component of the Building Canada Fund
• An additional $1.5 billion federal dollars announced under the Communities Component since January 2009
• $9.6 billion rolled out for over 6,000 infrastructure projects
• The doubling of the gas tax fund from $1 billion to $2 billion per year
• The 1100 projects across Canada to clean up water systems
• The 60 projects to improve public transit
• The 1400 projects for local roads and highway upgrades
• The $517 million committed from the Green Infrastructure Fund towards 16 projects which will help decrease Canada’s energy consumption and GHG emissions.

Mr. Jean provided each delegate with a re-usable environmental bag filled with information booklets, brochures and souvenirs from the riding, most of which were generously provided by local municipalities, businesses, oilsands companies and community organizations. 

“I can tell you that Northern Alberta is farming, forestry, oilsands and it is the economic engine of Canada.  It is also a breathtaking, pristine, protected Canadian wilderness; and a place I am very proud to call home,” said Mr. Jean in his speech to the delegates, “I hope to see you all up in Northern Alberta this summer.”