Mr. Laurin, I've heard from your testimony that we are very competitive with regard to our manufacturing base, and we're able to compete with anybody in the world. The evidence we've seen in the last five or six years is that our trade deficit, especially in the manufacturing sector, has ballooned from $18 billion to almost $75 billion, I believe.
So there has been a huge change in the products that we import and export. It's clear in a lot of the manufacturing jobs that have been lost over the last number of years that this deficit has been widening. The trade deficit in manufactured goods has been ballooning over the last five years.
How can the government assist the manufacturers in narrowing that deficit so we can have well-paying jobs here in Canada?