It really was not rocket science back then to project what displacing and exporting important functions of our economy like manufacturing could produce. There was some effort expended to talk of impractical alternatives to fill the gaps in. This to me indicated in the early days this was going to be a real problem eventually.

I well remember when visiting my family in Toronto. They asking me why the movement of equipment from the centre core area of the city was only done in the early hours of the morning. I mentioned it could have been for traffic issues. In reality if so why was the movement not also in the late hours just before midnight and on the weekends all day? In those days other than buisness hours there was little traffic in the core areas.

I think the political powers did not want the general population to realise just how much was leaving in the early eighties. It was a flood for awhile there.