My recommendation is very similar to the way you run a business. If you decide you want a strong business, you work backwards from there. If this country wants to have manufacturing as what we call our strategic advantage—if it does, versus resources or whatever—then what we have to do strategically, I think, is support it.
In the company, what we do is train our people in lean technology and that sort of thing, because we know that's going to make us competitive. If this country wants to have competitive manufacturing, that's where the focus needs to be: to encourage it. I think that's really important.
Number two is that somehow—and I realize the federal government doesn't have a lot of play in some of these areas, because it's provincial or local or whatever—as a country we have to welcome manufacturing companies. I would like to be welcomed to be in Canada, to stay in Canada, to grow in Canada. Just because I'm human, I sort of like that, and it's nice to be courted by those other guys.
But I think if we want to be successful here—and I'm a Canadian and I want us to be successful—we have to get off our duffs and start to go after this and really encourage it. Maybe it's money, maybe it's just attitude—and then, it's training and having the skilled people.
I realize there's no simple answer, but I do believe Canada has to decide: do we or don't we want to be in the manufacturing game? Then we work backwards from there.