Provencher Member of Parliament Ted Falk is calling it a "shot in the arm" for the community of Sprague. Falk has announced a $15 million upgrade to the border crossing at Sprague.

The money comes from the $440 million package for border service offices upgrades across the country. It's part of the federal investment of $5.8 billion in federal public infrastructure, announced November 24th by the Prime Minister.

"For anybody that travels Highway 12 through Sprague to the United States on a regular basis you will have noticed that we don't have much of a facility on our side when it comes to actual infrastructure and the Americans actually have a very nice facility," notes Falk.

He says the new building being constructed will not look exactly like what the Americans have, but will be "a very compatible building and it will have all state of the art equipment in there and the facilities will just be top notch."

Falk says the scope of the project is still subject to a site assessment evaluation but the end result will give officers the space they need to make sure traffic moves quickly across the border while providing a high level of security.

The Sprague crossing is a single lane port of entry and Falk says that's about to change.

"My anticipation is that they will add additional lanes," he says. "We haven't seen any drawings or any plans of the facility."

Falk notes construction should begin shortly, though he's uncertain whether it will be complete by the end of 2015. Falk says they shouldn't need to close the crossing at any point during construction.

"This is big news for Sprague," says Falk. "They're off in the corner of our riding and feel that maybe perhaps they haven't been getting some of that infrastructure money that they've needed to sustain as a community there for it to continue to grow and thrive."