Mr. McTeague, I would return to my generality, which is to say that basically outside North America or the OECD countries, it's very hard to distinguish the political from the economic and from the good personal networks. That's why it's very important for us to have a Canadian government presence in these key markets.
For instance, Foreign Affairs and Trade have been cut and cut again over the last 10 or 12 years. Their resources are so slim that they've had to pull a lot of people back from growing markets where we really need them. Yesterday, I was at a seminar on the Middle East. We need much stronger relations in the Middle East, and we do need ministerial, prime-ministerial, senatorial, and MP visits. These are really important. They may not seem so important. You say, gee, what's the substance of this? What it does is show respect for people. One of the Arab ambassadors yesterday was saying, “Don't just keep talking about us as a market. We're people. We have a culture and we have a history. We don't just want to be seen as a market.”
That's a tendency. Maybe in Canada we think we just buy stuff over the Internet and it doesn't matter who we're dealing with. In the developing world it's very important to have good relationships and to be showing respect and to be there—not just to be coming in, in a suitcase, but to have an ambassador on the spot. To have a prime minister or a minister visit, or to have a parliamentary delegation, makes all the difference.