I'd like to move on to some other examples of what South American countries are doing that we could certainly learn from. Getting back to the issue that we've had in place since 1989, free trade policy, along with other economic policies together, has actually meant that most Canadian families are earning less in real terms than they were back in 1989. We're seeing a huge erosion of our manufacturing base as well. I met with manufacturers in the transportation industry this week. They were saying that they are trying to export, for example, to the United States, but because of the Buy American requirements, are basically forced to manufacture in the United States. It's a procurement policy that pushes and supports American manufacturing.
In many South American countries, Brazil in particular, they built up a manufacturing base by having procurement policies that favoured domestic manufacturing.
So my first question is, can we learn from South American countries in developing or redeveloping, in Canada's context, manufacturing capacity by having procurement policies that actually try to favour Canadian domestic manufacturers?