Again, I think that's a crucial question to the future prosperity of our country, because the problem with being a hewer of wood and a drawer of water and a scraper of bitumen—I guess that would be the extra phrase to add to it today—is that the resources run out, world prices are very unreliable, and you're missing the job and productivity benefits of adding value to those resources.
It was mentioned that in our current trade with Japan, coal is one of our largest exports and automobiles are our largest import. How many tonnes of coal do we have to dig out and ship to the coast and transport across the Pacific Ocean to pay for just one of those vehicles that comes the other way? That is just a losing proposition for our country. And in terms of the theory of comparative advantage, the Japanese never let that stop them.
What is the comparative advantage of the Japanese? Do they actually have a natural advantage in producing high-technology, high-value, innovative, technologically sophisticated products? That's not a comparative advantage. In fact, they looked around their island and said, “We don't have easily extractable, highly profitable resources. We had better do something else as a country.” And proactive industrial strategy, starting with the work of MITI in the initial post-war decades and continuing today in various forms, has been crucial to Japan's success.
I think we need to emulate the range of tools that has been used by Japan, by Korea, by Brazil, by Germany, by Finland. Finland is a country that has a lot of resources but doesn't limit itself to extracting them and exporting them. They have higher aims in terms of the higher-value-added products and services that they sell. It requires government tools in the area of technology, innovation, skills and training, partnering with universities and research stakeholders. It also means helping to create markets for the products that we want to sell, by using domestic procurement as an active tool, as the Asians and Europeans have done so well.
On the whole set of tools, what was traditionally called industrial policy, I would call that sector development strategies today. It's what we have to be looking at, but the tradition in Canada in recent years has not been to do that.