I think quite a big chunk of the problem has been specific to the forest industry which does face a fairly unique set of negative circumstances.
The other point I would make is that we went through quite a long period in Canada when our dollar was low. There were certainly good and bad aspects to it: we did see quite a lot of jobs being created in manufacturing after the recession of the early 1990s, but not a lot of investment in new machinery and equipment, innovation, and so on, so in a sense we did set ourselves up for a difficult problem as the dollar recovered to normal levels.
If you compare our manufacturing sector with those in other advanced industrial countries, ours has a very strong resource component, parts of which are here to stay, but we're much more dependent on the automotive sector than other countries are. As well, our machinery and equipment sectors--aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and so on--which should do well in the new global economy, are, despite their significance, relatively small.
The lesson I'd draw is that we really need some sectoral strategies to deal with this. Given the unique importance of our automotive industry, we badly need an automotive strategy in Canada around aerospace, because in terms of the structure of our economy it's really important that we build on those sources of strength that we have, rather than just watch them evaporate very quickly.