I have a couple of points, just to build on what my colleagues have said. In agriculture, when we are exporting internationally, we are price-takers. We don't set the price. We know the international price rises and fluctuates, so when input costs rise, we know who gets stuck in the middle—the producers these gentlemen represent. That's just the reality. Let's not forget that. Mr. Easter certainly knows the trials and tribulations of the agricultural sector.
The point was made that we have to be competitive, and a huge, massive neighbour to the south of us is not moving all that fast on carbon pricing. Depending on what happens, we could very easily find that we are very offside with that. There is the threat of the Chinese bringing carbon-heavy imports into the country, so unless we somehow figure out a system to put a carbon tax on imports as they come across, we are putting our own Canadian companies at a disadvantage.
We already have a lot of companies—and I'll speak from the Manitoba Business Council's perspective—that are very significant employers here. There are thousands of employers in Manitoba in the manufacturing sector and the value-added sector that export internationally, and significantly to the U.S. They already have plants in the U.S., for a couple of reasons.
One is the Buy American program, depending on what you are selling. If American federal money is going into a public institution—whether it's transit, a university, or whatever—and you are selling manufactured goods, whether it's a bus or lighting equipment, you have to have American content, so they've had to put plants in there. Many of those plants are already more competitive and more efficient, when you measure all the input costs, which oftentimes include the taxes, fees, and charges we put on them.
That is why we say that we have to be on par with that. If we get too far out of whack, what will happen is that those companies will continue to supply the American market out of American plants, but if something gives, it will be the employees here. At the end of the day, the company will continue, but the jobs here will disappear. That's the challenge of finding the right balance. Conversation and discussion are important and absolutely critical.