AMBM President Ivan Normandeau issued the following statement following the release of the Government of Canada’s 2021 Budget on April 19, 2021:

By releasing a bold budget focused on strong economic recovery, the Government of Canada is meeting the vision and priorities of the Economic Recovery Strategy for Manitoba’s Bilingual Municipalities in many ways.

• This budget enhances the mechanisms available to municipalities to stimulate recovery through investments that support local and community infrastructure. In 2020, AMBM members have identified $258.3 million in priority infrastructure projects. It is imperative that the federal government get on board to get these critical initiatives underway for our economic recovery.
• In the green economy, the federal government is reaffirming its commitment to creating a cleaner environment and supporting the transition to cleaner transportation, waste management and sustainable infrastructure. Municipalities own 60% of the critical infrastructure that supports the economy. It is important to remember that small and medium-sized municipalities do not have the capacity or resources to undertake this transition alone. The turnkey approach proposed by our subsidiary, Eco-West Canada (EWC), will support local governments in Manitoba and Western Canada in making the transition to clean technologies and building their capacity to implement them.
• The budget provides concrete support to rural communities by investing in digital infrastructure improvements (high-speed Internet). Notably, the addition of $1 billion over six years to the Universal Broadband Fund (UBF) was announced. This will support economic development and investment attraction in the 14 rural municipalities that are members of the AMBM and address language assimilation.
• In terms of local and regional economic development, this budget demonstrates a willingness to allocate more resources to the growth of the Prairie provinces. Above all, we would like to see clear indications of how the federal government’s commitment will translate into new investments for Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs). We want these investments to help build the capacity of bilingual municipalities and their Community Development Corporations (CDCs). The injection of new economic development capital must also be channelled through our members who have a direct impact on OLMC development. The deployment of forces in the field will be done in collaboration with the Economic Development Council for Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities (CDEM) and Éco-Ouest Canada (ÉOC), both subsidiaries of the AMBM Group.
• We are seeing a significant injection of capital to revitalize Canada’s tourism sector, which has been devastated by the COVID-19 crisis. In the short term, federal government support will make it possible to deploy priority tourism projects in our municipalities, estimated to be worth $27 million. In the long term, a federal-municipal partnership will allow for better planning and structuring to achieve the full potential of Francophone and Métis tourism development in our province.
• We share the government’s vision to strengthen Canada’s immigration system. We firmly believe that immigration will be an important cornerstone for successful economic recovery in our Francophone and bilingual communities. The AMBM is committed to working on increasing Francophone economic immigration to rural areas, in line with the labour needs of our local employers. To achieve this, we wish to partner with the federal government in the implementation of the future Municipal Nominee Program (MNP).
• We are pleased that the budget reiterates the government’s intention to protect the use of French and support the vitality of official language minority communities by modernizing the Official Languages Act. We reiterate the importance of a strong federal-municipal partnership to strengthen the capacity of our municipal governments to foster the development of their Francophone and French-speaking Métis communities, as well as to promote their added cultural, tourism and economic value.

The AMBM is the voice of bilingual municipal leadership in the province of Manitoba. It represents 15 local governments committed to providing services in both official languages to their citizens.

Manitoba’s bilingual municipal leadership is also at the helm of the AMBM Group, a consortium of three complementary organizations: the AMBM, CDEM (CDEM) and EWC, which has specialized in the green economy since 2008. These three complementary organizations actively contribute to the development, vitality and sustainability of the province’s Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs), including the French-speaking Métis.

Information: Justin Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, 204-289-4077, [email protected].