I'll begin by mentioning a few statistics, because I don't think western Canada, and certainly not Calgary, is thought of as a manufacturing centre.
About 47,000 people are employed in manufacturing in Calgary. That's about 7.2% of our total employment base. When you look right across Alberta, in the past decade 23% of Canada's new manufacturing jobs were created in this province. So it has certainly been an emerging sector, and Edmonton is a leader in that regard.
Just to put the employment figure into focus, we got Statistics Canada information last week on year-over-year employment gains across the country. The net new jobs in Calgary alone were 30% of the total job increase for the nation--that happened in one economic region. That kind of highlights some of the challenges you are hearing about from some of my colleagues across the table.
I'm not going to carry on talking about the challenges; I'm going to talk about just a small solution that we're exploring. Thanks to your member from Quebec for suggesting I do this.
We set up a relationship with our counterparts from Quebec City and the region around Quebec City. The purpose of that was to see how we could connect business-to-business opportunities, particularly in manufacturing, from the Quebec City region to the Calgary region. This really began in 1956 with a sister-city relationship between Calgary and Quebec City for the Calgary Stampede and the Quebec winter carnival. This relationship is now moving into an economic front.
On the program we've put together with our counterparts from the Quebec City region, essentially 17 manufacturers of building products from the Quebec City area have a representative working out of our office. The salary of that individual is paid for through our sister organization in Quebec City and those 17 manufacturers. We provide the overhead, office space, computer hookup, all the telecommunication links, access to our staff and networks, and all the coffee this person can drink.
In the past four weeks that this person has been here, she has already set up two contract situations for these companies. One of these companies has already set up a permanent employee, who is now working on behalf of that company. In the next five months that this program is being piloted, I'm very confident we are going to see some significant business-to-business opportunities.
We went to Toronto and Ottawa in June of this year, and preceded that visit by doing some surveys of people and businesses in the area. We discovered that there's still a lack of understanding and awareness about what's happening in western Canada. I'm sure if you did the same surveys here you might find there's a very significant lack of awareness and understanding of what's happening in parts of eastern Canada.
I mention this because I think it is something you should consider in your report. This kind of project starts to bridge that gap. While we are very fortunate to have significant economic opportunities--more than we can handle perhaps here in western Canada right now--that tide will likely turn at some point and we will be looking for the same opportunities in the east. So this will start bridging that gap.
Thank you very much.