Yes.
To address your first question, that's right. Companies will sometimes come to us after they've already attempted to get that advice from Global Affairs, although often it's before. Frankly, as legal counsel, we still have a role, regardless of whether we're getting direction from the government, to advise our clients as best we can on moving forward with a transaction, for example, that involves Iran. Often, it means that we can't give them a clear legal opinion that there's no issue under Canadian law. We have to identify the risks with moving forward.
As I was mentioning earlier, it often means that when a company sees those risks, and those risks often arise because there's no guidance from the Canadian government, the company feels that they're better off simply not proceeding with the transaction. It's not worth the cost. Or, if they want to proceed, and they have to continue to retain legal counsel to help them through the steps and all of that, that's costly for companies. For them it becomes a big headache to proceed, and it's easier for them just to say they are not going to engage in trade with that region for the time being until there's more clarity.
I'm less familiar with the situation you mentioned in the second part of your question, Mr. Kent, in terms of who is on and off the list. I can tell you from a Canadian point of view that is not as readily available, and hasn't been in the past, as it has been from other countries like the United States. We've had situations where orders in council have been passed adding parties, but those orders were not published for a day or two, which is a problem sometimes, especially for banks that need to be right on top of it as soon as that comes into force. We've had to struggle with that. In the past, sometimes we've seen it on the PMO website, and sometimes it's on the Global Affairs website. Sometimes when it's on the Global Affairs website, that list is called an unofficial list. There's still a lot of uncertainty around that listing process and identifying those parties quickly for Canadian companies and banks to respond quickly.