Thank you for inviting me here today. I can't think of anything more appropriate than a poster of “Humanity First”, from the NDP, sitting over my left shoulder as I make my presentation.
I want to start out by saying that I've been watching question period lately. It's usually a good way to find out what the members of Parliament think are the most important issues of the day. Quite frankly, I'm disgusted. Working people must be wondering what is in the water on Parliament Hill these days, and who can blame them.
Less than a year after an election campaign where everyone was talking about making life better for working people and the families they support with the wages they earn, less than a week after returning home from listening to your constituents, the best thing the House can come up with is a brawl about name calling. The only thing the press gallery can write about is the hurt feelings, the insults, and schemes of a party without even a single seat. Working people deserve better than this. With so many people out there worried about their jobs or about to lose them, I think members of Parliament would do well not to take their own employment for granted.
Canadian manufacturing and the sector are in a deep crisis. Over the last four years, we've lost one in seven, or about 15%, of the two million jobs we used to have in this sector. Almost 300,000 jobs have disappeared, gone, and I'll tell you right now that many more layoffs and plant closures are on the way.
There are 300,000 jobs gone--good jobs. Many of them were highly skilled jobs. Close to half of them were union jobs. They paid an average of $21 an hour. They were the kinds of jobs that supported a decent standard of living for ordinary working people and their families, and the kinds that built the communities that all of us came from.
Just to remind you, the last time we saw job losses on this scale was between 1989 and 1992, when our economy was declared to have been in full recession. But if you believe the banks and the right-wing think tanks or those millionaire wizards of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, our economy is robust.
I suppose if you're a capitalist, someone who makes their money from investing or the spillage of moving so much of other people's money around, you might think things are pretty good today. But if you're someone who works for wages, the odds are your future isn't as bright as it was a few years ago, because it doesn't stop there.
Manufacturing jobs are the wellspring for jobs in other sectors. When we lose them, we lose good jobs in the sectors that supply manufacturing companies with specialized inputs—sectors like transportation and business services, to name just two. It's a domino effect that cuts across the rest of the economy.
We hear a lot today about the need to build a highly productive, innovative, and so-called knowledge-based economy. The impression is often left that the good jobs of the future have nothing to do with the old business of making things. The fact of the matter is that fully two-thirds of the research and development in Canada are undertaken in our manufacturing sector.
It's true that the energy boom is creating jobs, and they're good jobs, I might add, particularly in western Canada. But in terms of direct jobs, the oil and gas industry has replaced only one in six of the jobs we've lost in manufacturing since 2002.
We also hear a lot today about the need to improve Canada's productivity performance. One of the worst ways to do that is to shift jobs from the high-wage, high-productivity industries to low-productivity, low-wage industries, but that's precisely what we're doing in our country today.
The proportion of all jobs held by adult workers that pay less than the poverty line wage of $10 an hour has been increasing to one in eight adult jobs in 2005. Most manufacturing workers who lose their jobs take a big pay cut, and when they are lucky enough to find a new job, they end up earning much lower wages.
My key point is that we need to maintain and build up our manufacturing sector as a major source of good jobs for the future. The bottom line is that Canada needs a long-term job strategy. Fundamental to that strategy is building an innovative and highly productive manufacturing base, a base that can support well-paid jobs with decent working conditions. Other countries have done it. Their economies are strong. Communities are prospering there, and their citizens are reaping the benefits.
Canada's role in the world must be as a supplier of goods and services that sell on the basis of being unique and of high quality. This requires investment in research and development, investment in skills, and investment in leading-edge new plants, new machinery, and equipment. It requires a plan, an agenda, because quite frankly, much of the Canadian manufacturing sector as it exists today is not up to the challenge.
The constant mantra of the corporate elites, repeated by most politicians, I regrettably add, has been that the free trade deals and low corporate taxes, plus a tax on the living standards of workers, will lead to increased international competitiveness. I've heard it all of my working life. That strategy has clearly failed. Free trade agreements modelled on the Canada-U.S. deal have led to job losses. They've led to unbalanced trade outcomes and relentless downward pressure on wages, benefits, and working conditions as well. Even unionized manufacturing workers have seen few increases in wages and benefits, even as work demands and productivity have increased. As a country, we have become more rather than less dependent on raw resource exports. It's a shame. High corporate profits have not been ploughed back into major new investments, and our companies are sitting on piles of cash, I might add.
The CLC has put forward the beginnings of such a plan for good jobs and wealth creation. It's a combination of better monetary policies, balanced trade, protection of labour rights, support for investment in new manufacturing, equipment and tools, training and skills development for workers--working Canadians--and an actual industrial strategy to knit everything together. The market is not going to provide us with prosperity that can come from a productive value-added green and sustainable economy unless we make investment first.
The plan was sent to you last week, so I won't go into details. However, I do look forward to your questions, and thank you for your time.