I don't want to oversell our effectiveness so far. I think we're just trying to spool ourselves up a little bit. What we actually want to do is to talk to U.S. legislators in the presence of their own constituents about the relationship we have and the prosperity it has generated.
I think that's the most effective way to send them back to Washington, with at least caution in their minds about actions that would be bad for Canada.
In cooperation with the government, we plan to pick different regions of the country and research the business relationships. I think Americans and Canadians are sometimes not aware of how dense the relationships are and how important they are. In Texas, there are 180,000 people whose jobs are connected to Canadian businesses. I would imagine 179,000 of them have no idea.
Our thought was to send at least our president, who has a fairly good profile, and some other Canadian business leaders and then discuss with the federal government here whether or not including Canadian politicians would be advantageous, on the theory that politicians may bring out local politicians. We would then just try to make the case in as friendly a fashion as possible, but with some warning.
Minister Freeland mentioned to Mr. Ryan that his state produced $1 billion in exports to Canada. Mr. Ryan was visibly affected by that number and said that's pretty good research on her part. As I say, I don't believe Americans are hostile to us. They just need to know how complex the relationship is and how easy it is to hurt themselves by doing something that's negative to Canada.