International Trade committee  It's just a quick comment, Mr. Cannis. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has made great efforts to improve their services under the auspices of their global commerce strategy, which we have strongly supported. Secondly, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is on the record calling for more resources to be put into the international trade and foreign affairs sides, basically saying that this is an area where we need to have more money if we can.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chairman, the deplorable murders of trade unionists in 2002 reached as high as more than 200 individuals. Again, it's highly deplorable, but in 2007 that number had dropped to 33 trade unionists, so there's been an incredible reduction in the murder rate of trade unionists.

Industry committee  Given the fact that Canada has an open economy, the manufacturing sector obviously will continue to face challenges with the current economic conditions we face. My view is that the manufacturing sector is fully capable of competing internationally, both in the United States and abroad.

Industry committee  As chair of the Canada China Business Council.

Industry committee  Just to add to Mr. Marchi's point, yes, at the WTO we need a deal. But we need to also utilize all the instruments we have at our disposal to open up markets and to promote investment from the Canadian side in all these other potential emerging markets where we could export our services.

Industry committee  I'd just add, Ms. Brunelle, that yesterday CIBC World Markets released a jobs quality report on the year 2007, reporting that the quality of jobs actually increased versus those in the previous year by a record amount not seen since 1999. In 2007, 132,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector were actually lost; however, more than 400,000 high-paying jobs, at least according to this report, were created in 2007—a 3.6% increase—versus low-paying jobs, which were obviously also cut back by about 1.2%.