Green Infrastructure Investments

"Green" infrastructure investments are a greater source of net job creation dollar for dollar than investments in traditional fossil fuel industries, tax cuts or investments to boost consumer spending.
A $10 billion dollar investment over 2 years can create 200,000 jobs by allocating the money into five areas: mass transit, passenger rail, affordable housing, energy conservation through building retrofits and renewable energy including co-generation and "smart grids".
The job creation benefits will increase if the investments also contain requirements for Canadian content.

Canada has a $123 billion municipal infrastructure deficit due to decades of under-investment.
Job growth in the short to medium term will not come from exports, higher household spending or private investment, all of which are quite depressed.
The credit collapse has hurt our ability to raise capital for major wind and solar projects.
Government interest rates are very low and many parts of the economy, including construction, are slowing fast, so needed investments can be undertaken at a low cost.
We have lost over 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2002, starting before the recent intensification of the economic crisis. All the while greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing.
The manufacturing job losses can be attributed to the large and growing manufacturing trade deficit with Asia; the long-standing lack of major new investments in Canadian industry and because of the high dollar, which is the direct result of the resource boom and our out-of-control tar sands development. Interestingly Canada's growth in greenhouse gas emissions, much like Canada's growth in manufacturing job losses can be linked directly to the ongoing development of the Alberta tar sands.

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