I reference the closures of the Citizenship and Immigration facilities in Buffalo and Seattle. Where that has created difficulties that have specifically come to the fore with respect to those who are requiring business visas to come to Canada to invest.
One story I'd recount to you is from a friend of mine who's a lawyer and who represents a Fortune 1000 company. They had a senior executive who was coming to Ontario for what he hoped would be to close the agreement. He went to the border, as he had been doing, and he was detained for 90 minutes and pulled into secondary. After that experience, he said, “I don't want my employees to have to go through this.” He took his 375 jobs and established the facility in the United States.
That is something that won't show up in the economic statistics, but making it easier to get people across the border by having advanced information, by using technology, and by having people present on the ground is important.
We learned from cargo space that if you do things away from the border you avoid problems at the border. We've gone backwards on that.
I served representing Industry Canada in Washington for four years. One of the things I know about how the U.S. system works—and Laura is absolutely right on this—is you have to be out there, including in the states and provinces. We do have to make the United States and Mexico among our most important resource allocations for foreign affairs. There is no substitute for seeing a member of Congress in their office and in their district. You see them in Washington and you get 20 minutes. You see them in their district, they invite you to a barbecue and you get an hour and a half.