Thank you.
We are not criticizing the reaching of an agreement. We live with it. You created the agreement with your hard work and we live with it every day. We are not criticizing the creating of an agreement. We are business people and we sign agreements every day. We do business across the United States and 98% of our sales last year were in the U.S.
We have nothing against the U.S. trying to protect their economy. They have to do it. What we are after is for us to have our own economy and our own strategy to develop our own opportunities without relying on the U.S. We are not there to fight the U.S. They are a good customer. We have to create our own, as they have done by inviting us directly or indirectly to set up manufacturing facilities under the recovery act. We did, they're happy, they complimented us, they wrote about us, and they are thanking us for doing it.
What we have to do is have reciprocal initiatives in our economy. We can modify this in different forms so that it does not have the appearance of protectionism but does have the appearance and the true meaning of investment. When we say that we want to expand in the U.S., we still want to invest in Ontario, we want to invest in Alberta, and we want to invest in Quebec. Our means are stretched.
Our means are stretched and our U.S. competitors are strong, and they come from places where they know the ways to get around the system. They don't come from places where they play just by the rules. This is what you have to face every day. You make the agreement and they know how to work around the agreement.
They come here to Ontario and take projects from us that we worked on for three and a half years and four years, in the region of Waterloo and in Durham County. They go to Repentigny, which is 15 minutes away. They know how to manoeuvre around, and our means are stretched because we had to invest in the U.S. We have no backing locally. We are weak. We had one of them fly over to have a meeting with us, offering to buy us--