Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We're getting into a lot of the nitty-gritty of really important policies. It's too bad we can't have six hours with you, but hopefully we'll be able to speak with you again.
I want to come back to the SMEs and exports because I've been with the trade committee and have seen the problems that we're having in providing support around trade promotion. I'll give you an example. I've spoken with trade commissioners who don't even have a budget for a cup of coffee to take a client out abroad, who is a potential buyer of Canadian goods. It's a fundamental problem, because Canada only spends about $14 million for trade promotion and supports. Our chief competitors, the European community, the United States, Australia, spend hundreds of millions of dollars to support their export industries. Canada doesn't do that, and SMEs of course then fall between the cracks because the supports are just not there.
How important is it for Canada to start to provide that significant trade promotion support? I'm talking about specific products, Canadian products, so SMEs can penetrate markets where we're non-existent now, not necessarily because there are barriers, but because we're not providing the supports that allow those products to go into those markets.