Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for coming.
I agree with your central premises. Canadians know how important the American economy is to them, but very few Americans actually know the reverse. Hence, there's value in those little brochures that the embassy gives out when you're sitting with a congressman or a senator; the trade figures are broken down by state, and even sometimes by district. Almost inevitably the eyebrows shoot to the top of their heads, and they'll say they didn't know that.
I don't know whether your organization had much to do with putting those together, but I found them to be a very useful tool.
I want to ask a number of questions with respect to the thickening of the border. I got a very irate call from a very good friend of mine yesterday who runs a small business. It's a spice business. It's a very prosperous business. He imports spices and distributes them to 36 countries, and obviously, the U.S. is a major country. When he sends a shipment down to be distributed in the U.S., he sends with it one of his employees who teaches the distributor how to mix and match, etc.
This particular individual has been doing it for 13 years. He got turned away at the border. By the way, he had no Muslim name or anything like that. He got turned away at the border because the border guard said he was going to take away a job from an American. This guy's going to be in and out in 24 hours, and he's told that he's going to take a job away from an American.
I have a number of anecdotes to that effect. The question is, in your observation, is there a trend developing here? Do these anecdotal events actually end up as trade impediments?