I think that's one of the most important questions to frame up your work with this study: to translate what something as obscure sounding as productivity, where Canada rests in OECD rankings or what business investment per worker mean. It means that, for Canadian manufacturers and other Canadian workers, there is less business investment in supporting them to do their jobs, to produce more and to help generate higher real wages for them, their co-workers and, of course, the families and the communities they operate in. As I noted in my remarks, it's only by increasing productivity that we ensure that Canadian firms can better compete, which means that we can hire more, pay better and take advantage of new market opportunities, whether those be through the U.S., where most of our sector still exports, or taking advantage of new market opportunities.
In the context of the current trade crisis, there's been a lot of talk about diversification and how we better diversify. The answer is partially through, of course, market access and tools to support manufacturers, especially SMEs, to figure out how to access those markets, but really it lies in making us more competitive and productive. Ultimately, Canada is a somewhat high-cost jurisdiction to do business in. We have benefited for decades due to our proximity to and integration with the U.S., but our ability to compete and carve out new market access and our ability to withstand tariff pressures and other political tactics from south of the border really depend on our ability to invest in our facilities, to invest in the capital stock, to give Canadian manufacturers access to the technologies that are being deployed in our competitor markets, and to continue building some of the best products in the world at the best prices and in the most reliable way.