It is certain that the manufacturing heart of Canada is located in the central part of the country—in Ontario and Quebec. Over two-thirds of Canada's manufacturing sector and manufacturing activities are concentrated in that area. Those two provinces probably share the concerns I expressed in my comments.
That being said, as I mentioned earlier, if the resource sector had better access to the Japanese market and could increase its production and exports, the manufacturing sector would certainly benefit in turn.
However, when our members assess the negotiations of a trade agreement with Japan, they realize that it is more of a situation where, in general, the Japanese companies have fairly good access to the Canadian market. Of course, there are custom tariffs on many of their products, and the Canadian market is not always easy to penetrate. However, it should be said that there are fewer trade barriers and restrictions for a Japanese company that wants to do business in Canada than for a Canadian company that wants to go to Japan.
As I mentioned, those factors partially contribute to the trade deficit with Japan when it comes to products and goods manufactured in Canada. That being said, in the context of a free trade agreement and provided that some of those barriers can be eliminated, we may be able to do more trading with Japan and to increase our exports to and investments in that country. That's a promising situation for us.
Quebec and Ontario manufacturing companies want to export elsewhere in the world. For those companies, access to foreign markets outside of North America is becoming increasingly important. Companies are devoting more and more resources to the development of those markets.
A number of sectors in the Japanese market should normally be very attractive. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs have often given up on the idea because it was too expensive, too complicated and too risky to try to increase their exports to that market.