Deficits have been an issue; this government has run successive ones nationally, but is now, according to the finance minister, on track to balance.... Yet we are running—I'm just looking up the numbers here—tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure deficit across Canada, with municipalities like yours unable to meet the challenges. The Toronto Region Board of Trade, and groups from Fort McMurray, to Vancouver, Halifax, and beyond, recognize infrastructure, particularly around congestion.... I look at Highway 63 and just even the danger factor for those workers travelling south to Edmonton. I wonder, with these circumstances, why the government wouldn't see this as an opportunity to build the next stage for Canada. Thank you for that.
I want to turn to Ms. MacEwen for a moment. There is a connection—and this goes to Ms. Cobden's testimony as well as Mr. Watkins'—and it's an implicit connection between an increase in productivity and efficiency within any of our industries, and a drop in labour participation. Is it an explicit connection? I come from a forestry sector in northern British Columbia. We've seen mills, almost within the same breath, announce major investments, $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, into a mill and then within a couple of weeks the layoff announcement comes, because the mill becomes more efficient. It's just that fewer people are required to turn out the same volume, or even more in most cases.
I want to go to Ms. Cobden just for a second before I go to you, Ms. MacEwen.
How many Canadians worked in the forestry industry, say, 15 years ago?