International Trade committee  That's a tricky question.

International Trade committee  Yes, please do.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I haven't seen an immediate impact but it's something that on both fronts we're looking at very closely. It could be a competitive advantage with the reduction in the dollar, but it does have an impact on the oil price as well. We're looking at it.

International Trade committee  As I said in my introductory remarks, we're talking about a market of 500 million customers, so it is a very large market that SMEs can take full advantage of. Europe is easier to penetrate than, for example, the Asian market because it's a more mature market, the rules and regul

International Trade committee  We work a lot in matrices, in a sense. In terms of helping the SMEs, if we know there are certain trade commissioners in some markets in the U.S. for example that have that specialty, then they are tapped into. Often the first point of contact is in our regional office. A company

International Trade committee  It's early days, but clearly for us it's a driver. It's a big success for Canada to have been able to do that. We're hoping to see the benefits of that very soon.

International Trade committee  I'll start, and then Todd, who has participated in seven of those sessions, might provide more colour on the ground. First of all, these workshops are advertised by either the EDC, BDC, or our trade commissioner service client base, and by CCC as well. People come because they a

International Trade committee  Yes, that is one thing that the trade commissioners, either in Canada or around the world, have to always be aware of, all the regulatory and legal changes that are happening in Canada and in their country. Our regional offices, for example, are the first point of contact for t

International Trade committee  We don't have a target but our road map is what is in the GMAP. That is keeping us on the straight and narrow, in a sense. One of your colleagues mentioned our great dependency on the United States market. We are trying to diversify. To do that, we need to de-risk the value prop

International Trade committee  We started these workshops and I think have now completed nine or ten. We've touched about a thousand SMEs, so it has been a success. On average, there were about 100 participants per workshop. They're normally in secondary cities. They're not in the big metropolitan areas. We

International Trade committee  I'm sorry, Todd wanted to add something.

International Trade committee  I think you have in front of you all of the people responsible for part of the success. I think it's a multipronged approach in terms of both contacts and awareness of the opportunities—whether they have a good business plan or know what they're getting into, whether they're inno

International Trade committee  I will answer the question, but I will turn also to Todd. In the global markets action plan that Minister Fast announced in late 2013, there was a quote by the chief economist of Export Development Canada, Peter Hall, which the minister endorsed, saying that the target for the g

International Trade committee  I can answer in the context of the trade commissioner service. I'm sure the EDC will have their own statistics. As far as the services delivered by the trade commissioner service are concerned, we have five big sectors, really, that require our support and where there's the grea