Thank you for the opportunity to address this important forum.

You certainly don’t need me to tell you what you all know.

Canada’s manufacturing sector is in a deep crisis.

Over the past four years, we lost one in seven jobs – about 15% of the 2-million jobs we used to have in the sector.

Almost 300,000 jobs have disappeared. Gone. Many more layoffs and plant closures are on the way.

Three hundred thousand jobs. Gone. Good jobs. Many of them were highly-skilled jobs.

Close to half of them were union jobs. They paid an average of $21 per hour.

They were the kind of jobs which supported a decent standard of living for ordinary working people, their families and communities.

The last time we saw job losses on this scale was between 1989 and 1992 when our economy was in full recession. But if you believe the banks, the right-wing think tanks or the wizards at Council of Chief Executives, our economy is robust.

I suppose if you’re a capitalist – someone who makes their money from investments or from the spillage of moving so much of other people’s money around – you might think things are pretty rosy.

If you’re someone who works for wages, odds are your future isn’t as bright as it was just a few years ago.

Because it doesn’t stop there.  Manufacturing jobs are the wellspring for jobs in other sectors. When we lose them, we lose good jobs in the sectors which supply manufacturing companies with specialized inputs. Sectors like transportation and business services to name just two. It’s a domino effect that cuts across the rest of the
economy.

We hear a lot today about the need to build a highly-productive and innovative, so-called knowledge-based economy. The impression is often left that the good jobs of the future have nothing to do with the old business of making things.

The fact of the matter is that fully two-thirds of research and development in Canada is undertaken by the manufacturing sector.

Natural resources are an important part of our economy. But we need a strong manufacturing sector to add value to those resources before they are exported.