Thank you, Mr. Garneau.
To start with, I think the answer is in whether you want to put the cart before the horse or the chicken before the egg.
As I said in my presentation, companies have to take the responsibility to make the changes they need. We've seen an amazing rise in the dollar since 2002. The manufacturing sector is a favourite poster child for saying that low productivity has characterized manufacturing for the last seven or eight years, and this is where they are today. That's fair enough. When you have that kind of an edge when you're dealing with your major customer to the U.S., no doubt there are going to be some inefficiencies that creep in. But at the end of the day, nobody is pointing out the fact that we employed 600,000 people—600,000 high-paying jobs at that time.
I think what's happened in the last couple of years is that it has been one thing after another. And again, we were talking about the perfect storm. This isn't something that just happened overnight, but I don't think anybody was prepared for what came through the recession.
What the government has done in the last little while—and it has been of some assistance, don't get me wrong—with the work share program, and with BDC and EDC and the BCAP, while not perfect, is starting to address some of the credit issues. But at the end of the day I think we have to take a look at how we are going to help these small, medium, and large manufacturers compete and win. It comes down to incentive for investment. If you want these companies to make these investments, you have to give them the incentive.
We've been fighting for a long time for a two-year depreciation on capital cost allowance, and it wasn't even on the Department of Finance's radar in 2002-03. We need that. It will bring us in line with the U.S. We could write a piece of machinery off in two years instead of twelve. If you want to talk about your carbon footprint, or increasing efficiency and making yourself greener, one of the ways is through technology. Put the investment out there, let the companies invest, and let them write it off.
It's a bit of a challenge right now because a lot of the incentives we have are based on tax credits. In other words, you have to be making a profit to take advantage of them. I think this is the debate we have to take a look at moving forward to see how we can help all our companies invest in people, equipment, in the companies, and in Canada. I think that's really what it comes down to.