The Study does not move from the descriptions of women's concerns to discuss how they might be supported in their efforts to achieve higher wages, some job security, or safe working conditions. The authors argue that the Canadian producers are viable, competitive businesses and that protections should be removed in order to allow their Third World competitors fair access to our more lucrative markets. They argue that there is a level of lower wages for workers in other countries which is not super exploitive, and that the difference between these and Canadian wages is fair advantage. They feel that removing import restrictions would remove a contradiction in present Canadian foreign policy which provides development assistance to many of the competing countries, while blocking their more substantial economic development with import restrictions.

The textile and clothing industries provide the best example of how the present protections have been put in place, even though they violate international agreements which, since World War II, have tried to establish free trade between all countries. They have been protected since 1977 by a complex series of quotas and restrictions called the "Multi-Fibre Arrangement". It was adopted by industrialized countries as a set of emergency measures which, they argued, would allow their industries time to adjust to the growing competition from the Third World. Since then, owners' 'adjustment' strategies have included switching to less expensive synthetic fibres, conducting research into robotic technology, investing in new equipment, and lobbying for government provision of tax incentives or direct grant assistance to close shops in order to invest elsewhere.

Whether through closures or robotics, the intention is to reduce the size and cost of workforce. The Canadian Textile and Clothing Board has estimated that 60,000 jobs would disappear with the removal of import restraints. Adjustment strategies for employees have, at best, meant re-training for other employment, but have also meant re-location, early retirement, and unemployment. The Canadian government has a series of adjustment, or training programs for Canadian workers which are administered by Canada Employment and Immigration. It is through these kinds of programs that the book's authors feel that Canadians can be assured that those who are the least able (immigrant women) do not pay the heaviest price for industrial adjustment.

It is precisely these programs however, which women have heavily criticized over the past decade. The Study, in fact, provides a good overview of Canada's re-training and special adjustment programs and some discussion of how women have not benefited from Canada's wide-ranging employment policies in a manner commensurate with either their level of participation in the labour force or their disadvantaged position within it." (pg. 41). The details of women's systematic exclusion from occupational training programs, from effective participation in re-entry programs, from access to support for language training, are increasingly familiar. They make it hard to see how the large group of women who could be the most directly effected by disruption in the industries described, will benefit from programs which, to this point, have virtually excluded them.

This winter, women in the Canadian garment industry are experiencing increased production quotas, disciplinary action and firing, and are entering new rounds of negotiations with employers who expect concessions because the industry is in trouble. This Study does not provide a vision of how they can take more control over their lives, other than that they should abandon their jobs gracefully. The solutions prescribed in the study appear to recognize only those systems which maintain international economic inequality, without adequately addressing those systems which create barriers to women's equitable employment, either in Canada or in the Third World.