On the issue of investment, I think those higher investment levels we saw through the late 1990s was not just R and D investment; it was also capital investment. For a period of several years, a number of our companies were rapidly expanding their facilities, so there was a significant degree of capital investment in buildings and equipment, not just R and D. Their actual R and D expenditure has remained relatively constant over the last 10 years at $1.2 billion a year.
The employee numbers reflect some productivity increases. This is an industry in terms of competitiveness, and we also need to be very productive. As time goes by, we have increased our productivity, so while sales have come back to pre-2001 levels, we have not seen a similar increase in employment, and much of that has been driven by productivity increases.
The other element of it, though, is what I referred to a few minutes ago. We're seeing more outsourcing from companies to foreign countries because of competitiveness issues, some of it around the issue of market access, because as we have industrial regional benefit programs in Canada, other countries employ their offset programs. As we supply into defence markets in other countries, although not in a large way, we're also bound by their regional benefits or offset programs to place work in those countries.
So there are a number of factors: productivity and more outsourcing, in part driven by competitiveness issues that have impacted that growth in sales, but not seen a similar growth in employment. The R and D issue is around some capital investment. It fundamentally comes down to the fact that we need to partner. There's a high degree of risk in aerospace investment, and around the world there are countries willing to step up to either maintain and grow their own aerospace industries or create new aerospace industries, so we're competing for that investment.
On the C-17, how we lever that is still very much a strong point for Canada. The advantage if Canada were to buy C-17s is not participating in the building of potentially four airplanes. That's short-term work that's not going to last for long. How do we lever a relationship with Boeing to get preferred access to and into the supply chains and technology sharing in their space business and their defence business and their commercial aircraft business that will last 20 years for Canadian firms, not over the short duration of a purchase of a potential C-17 airplane?