Industry committee  No.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Industry committee  No, that's true.

Industry committee  It would be hard to give you a brief answer. This will also require considerable energy.

Industry committee  I would like to correct you on the connection between our benchmark, the core CPI, and the eight excluded products. The core CPI is simply a guide that tells us what the inflation trend will be, because the total CPI fluctuates according to fluctuations in those eight products and services.

Industry committee  It is true that profits are not very high for some sub-sectors. The situation is a very difficult one, especially in the clothing, textile, furniture and pulp and paper sectors. There are enormous variations in the manufacturing sector. There are businesses that are making enough of a profit, not a huge profit, but enough to invest.

Industry committee  That is a problem for businesses everywhere. It's difficult for manufacturing sectors because energy constitutes a major part of their costs, but the situation is the same around the world.

Industry committee  Yes, we need to be out of here by 12:15 p.m., I think, Mr. Chairman.

Industry committee  Certainly, the Government of Canada and the governments of most provinces have, since the early nineties, been on a track to try to deal with this. Indeed, Canada kind of stands out among the OECD community as having done a pretty good job on the fiscal side. “Having done” doesn't mean we can relax going forward, because as we work that debt service charge down over time, what it does is it allows us to deal with some of the costs of an aging society without having to raise taxes to deal with it.

Industry committee  The Americans have a big longer-run problem. They have a short-run problem that I won't really comment on, which they haven't dealt with very well, but they have a huge long-run problem. First, there's their social security system. We basically dealt with ours in 1996 with the reform of the CPP, and we have a structure of....

Industry committee  First, let's be very clear. Most of the specific tools that governments have are tools that are in the provincial domain. We have a few federally, but most of it is in the provincial domain in terms of government. In terms of employers, and this is really quite important, we have collectively in Canada, and I think it's true virtually in every province, not put as much emphasis on continuing upgrading and provision of skills to the labour force as we should have.

Industry committee  I guess all I'd say is that our strength--to take Dofasco's old line--is always going to be our people. Training and development of people is absolutely critical. It's critical, of course, to the individuals, but it's critical to the health of our firms. The importance of training and development comes up absolutely front and centre every time we're out in the field talking to firms.

Industry committee  Paul has done a lot of work on this, so let me ask him.

Industry committee  No. That's the short answer: no. The dollar is going to move around, and indeed it's sending signals as it moves around. The volatility is hard to deal with, but it is sending signals that are generally appropriate. As we look at what's been going on, the movement in the dollar largely, though not entirely, has reflected changes in demand for Canadian products.

Industry committee  I'm not the most competent person to comment on that. In aggregate, of course, what we are finally experiencing is an increase in real wages of workers. It's been a long time coming. We went through an extraordinarily difficult adjustment period in the 1990s, but we are now seeing real wage increases, which is good.