As Mr. Chevarie was saying, other players have been appearing on the Quebec market over the last four or five years. Economically speaking, there was more of an attraction to the U.S. market about four, five or six years ago. Exchange rates reached a peak of about $1.50 early in 2000. At the time, it was more profitable to sell your product to the U.S. In the past five or six years, and even in 2007, the exchange rate achieved parity, which had an extremely adverse effect on exporters and everyone else, given the speed at which it occurred.
It is not easy to develop a new market quickly. For example, we would like to develop a market in Europe in the coming years, but that will require work over several years before we succeed.
The exchange rate went up so quickly that no one had time to react and find alternatives. No one predicted the crisis that we have been experiencing since 2007-2008; we did not see it coming either. New markets are not easy to develop. We thought Europe could be a more attractive market than the United States, but that is not necessarily the case. The fact remains that practically no one predicted the difficult situation we are experiencing now and over which we have no control.