Coming out of 2009, we had the Obama administration at that time in the U.S. and it was the recovery act. This isn't new to us by the way. The whole issue of buy American provisions is not new; we've been dealing with this historically for generations, frankly.
In Canada, we fought for exemptions and I think we got exemptions in about 37 states that allowed Canada to bid on their procurement, but ultimately what Canada gave up at that time was the opportunity for U.S companies to bid on all of the federal and provincial procurement opportunities. At that time, there was a debate in Canada about whether or not we gave up too much.
If you really look at the history of this, what I'm concerned about is that we keep this in the proper context. If I go back even five or six years ago, to 2015, of the 500,000 contracts that were awarded to companies outside the U.S., Canada secured about 4% of those, or about $700 million worth, which in the overall scheme of things is two-fifths of nothing. We have never really been huge in winning U.S. contracts.
The other side of it, and I don't mean to go off, but, look, we should expect this. Biden-Harris ran on this. I think the Biden administration is going to make sure they wrestle back the whole argument from Trump, because he got elected on the whole story of pointing to the boarded-up auto assembly plants in Ohio and saying this is a result of poor trade deals. I think the Biden administration is going to do everything they can to wrestle back the narrative that they're standing up for American workers. I think we've got a hell of a job in front of us.