Our Plan

To achieve those goals, the Island Prosperity Strategy is a $200 million, five- year investment strategy with three key pillars:

• Investing in People ($40 million)
  
  
• Investing in Innovation ($100 million)
  
  
• Investing in Economic Infrastructure ($60 million)
  
  

Our Investing in People Pillar will deliver $40 million over five years in a series of new initiatives:

• Labour market development funds will be focused on building the pool of skilled workers needed for our strategic sectors to tap their full potential for growth.
  
  
• The Premier’s Awards and Speaker Series will foster creativity with our youth, recognize excellence in research, and promote public awareness of innovation.
  
  
• Graduate and post-doctoral awards will be provided to lend impetus to our research and development activities and to provide opportunities to our talented youth.
  
  
• Industry leveraged research chairs will be supported to build relationships and foster partnerships between industry and our growing research clusters.
  
  
• Greater emphasis will be placed on building our population – including increased support to help newcomers integrate and settle placing more emphasis on attracting skilled immigrants, and higher priority on recruiting international students.
  
  
• Support will continue for youth interactive media camps to engage them in this exciting
  career.

Our Investing in Innovation Pillar will deliver $100 million over five years in support of the following initiatives:

• The Pilot Fund will provide funds to test high-risk projects with commercial potential.
  
  
• The Discovery and Development Fund will support research projects upstream of traditional development and commercialization funding, and may be used to match federal support.
  
  
• The Prototype Fund will support proof of concept or prototype studies to move promising ideas towards commercialization more quickly.
  
  
• The Regulatory, Management, and Marketing Program will provide firms with expertise and mentoring they need to successfully get their products to market.
  
  
• Selected tax incentives will be maintained to spur further business development in priority sectors – and a review of corporate taxation approaches will be taken to maximize our competitiveness in advancing our key sectors.

Our Investing in Strategic Infrastructure Pillar will provide $60 million in support of key economic infrastructure. Strategic projects that would be further examined and explored include:

• The Island Biocommons Research Park located in the Charlottetown area as a national centre of excellence in natural product development for health applications.
  
  
• An E-Health Centre of Excellence information technology located in the Summerside area to create a centre of research excellence for testing and validation of health products to meet stringent global standards.
  
  
• An Accelerated Rural Broadband Strategy will be implemented to ensure that all
  Islanders have access to reliable, affordable high-speed internet access.
  
  
• High school laboratories across the Island will be modernized to engage all Island youth in science and ensure that they have access to state-of-the-art equipment.
  
  
• Renewable energy infrastructure will be developed in the areas of training and research, especially in Western Prince Edward Island, to maximize benefits to the Island from the rapid growth in this area.