When you talk about taking that larger share, I compliment the BDC for doing that. It seems to me that if we're going to unglue this system and get credit flowing back to business, which is really its lifeblood, to make sure it can actually continue to function and hopefully get back on its feet, then markets will eventually return. And we need to be prepared to take advantage of those particular markets when they do reappear.
If we don't have that lifeblood in the system, if, as Mr. Daignault said, the pendulum has really swung the other way, which I think it is a correct assessment, from the perspective of where you basically walked through the bank door 18 months ago and they would have fallen over themselves to give you money, they now seem to be gone on vacation somewhere, where they don't want to lend money to anyone. Regardless of how great an asset base you may have, it seems they don't have any preferred customers anymore.
I noticed that you said in here that a preferred customer is someone who has a long-term relationship. Some of the calls I get at my constituency office are from small and medium-sized businesses, which are saying, “I've been at the same financial institution for 25 years and I'm being squeezed out.” These aren't businesses that have international exposure, and they are not auto related. They're being squeezed out simply because the credit market is tightening. They become the aftershock, if you will, of that particular tightening.
When I look at your statistics on page 3, where you talk about 15,000 such contacts compared to 9,000 last year, I see where the increase is coming. Perhaps you could let me know whether the uptake is the same now as it was a year ago. In other words, you're at less than 10%. You're seeing 15,000 contacts, but your conversations have produced more than 1,200 referrals, which is running at about 8%. Was it indeed that same percentage when you had 9,000 contacts? Is that uptake about the same, or is it greater?