Thank you, Mr. Stanford.
I have time for one question, and I want to follow up with Mr. Myers.
First of all, I thought your point that lower oil prices will result in a very small reduction in energy costs was a very interesting one which I just wanted to highlight.
Second, in your brief, you stated the following:
The rapid depreciation of the Canadian dollar has increased the cost of imported materials, parts, and equipment for manufacturers across Canada....in the short-term many companies are caught with higher input costs without offsetting revenue benefits.
I wanted you to expand on that and perhaps address the question of whether the Canadian manufacturing sector and companies took advantage when the dollar was near parity in terms of upgrading their equipment. You talked about investing in the skills, equipment, and new products. Did they invest in new equipment? Then perhaps you could link into a much broader policy issue, which we hear a lot about, that companies are sitting on cash, to use a sort of colloquial expression.
Could you address that?