Thank you.
Well, the claim is often made that manufacturers in other parts of Canada have benefited from the oil sands development because of the inputs they sell to those projects. Now, certainly there are manufacturers who sell to those projects; that's without doubt. But the amount purchased by Alberta of manufactures made elsewhere in Canada has in fact declined to the extent that we have data.
It's unfortunate that our interprovincial data on trade—Mr. Cross could comment on this as well—are actually out of date. We receive annual data on interprovincial trade through our input-output program, as compared with the monthly data on international trade that we receive on our transactions with other countries.
Up to 2009—this is the most recent data we have—exports of manufactured goods from Ontario, Quebec, and other manufacturing regions outside of Alberta to Alberta were declining in absolute terms, and declining very sharply as a share of Alberta's purchases of manufactured goods.
There has not been a boom to the rest of Canada's manufacturing sector from the expansion of oil sands investment. In fact, in part because of the exchange rate, manufacturers everywhere in Canada, including Alberta, have seen a decline in their market. That's why manufacturing output and employment in Alberta also declined, despite the boom being right there.