To a large extent, this stronger showing by the U.S. manufacturing sector reflects the remarkable performance of two industries - electrical and electronic products and commercial and industrial machinery. These industries have benefited the most from dramatic advances in computer technology, and they have a much larger weight in the U.S. economy than here in Canada.
As a last comment on the facts about our productivity performance, I would like to stress the need to distinguish clearly between the rate of growth and the level of productivity. While this may seem selfevident, there has been a certain confusion on this score in some of the recent public commentary.