We've been in business for 20 years. Probably half our business is with the federal government and half with the private sector. We've learned from the university of hard knocks how to deal with the federal government.
We first had contact with OSME around 18 months ago and we've had a couple of sessions where we've had questions that were addressed to them. But the CIC program is the first time we've had any real interaction, so there's not a lot that we've had before, in answer to your question.
We were also involved with SR and ED, which ran for many years, and IRAP, which we only recently became involved with.
One general point I would make is that dealing with these programs with the federal government is extremely complex. We looked at IRAP some years ago, got some incorrect information, and concluded that there was nothing in IRAP for us. So we probably missed out on seven to ten years of IRAP support on the basis of that first incorrect information. There are a lot of good programs out there. It is very difficult, from our point of view, to go digging.
To put it in a different sense, if I have a potential client over here with $25,000 in his hand, and over here there is someone in the government with whom, if I spend time, I may be able to get something from, my natural instinct as a businessman is to go for the business client and take the money there.
So it would be good if we had a better means of getting information out, and OSME is probably going to do that.