I'd like to go next.
We have about 20 industries in Smiths Falls, the largest being Hershey, which is leaving. The next two are parts of U.S. branch plants, Stanley Tools and Shorewood Packaging, and both of those organizations have indicated to me, on several occasions when I've met with them in the past several years, that a decision would be made in the United States, in a boardroom, to close those operations in Canada because it's cheaper to do it in places like Mexico. So it's the value of wages. It's the issue of the exchange rate. It's the issue of capacity within their organization.
Now, just through way of example, one of the major factors of why Hershey is leaving Canada--all three plants, and they shared this with us last April--is the fact that when they look at the productivity, their plants are operating at about 40%. So they have too much capacity, which they can't fill up with product. We're seeing that contraction in terms of in favour of either going back to the U.S. or to other countries such as Mexico.
However, to answer your question, what I'm hearing from the industry leaders in Smiths Falls is that if we can find ways to—and I stress this in my point—look at the taxation policies at the three levels of government in terms of making it universally attractive for people to stay or to come to this country to do business, I think that's where the solution would take us and needs to take us. That sounds like a very general answer, but I keep hearing that other countries have been successful in that realm.
One of the comments you will probably counter with is, well, if we reduce our tax rates then we're going to lose revenue. It's been brought to my attention. I agree with this, that if we reduce the tax rates we might find more joining the party to do business in this country. I think that's vitally important.