As Ms. McRae was mentioning, the trade commissioner service is well positioned to work directly with Canadian businesses that are interested in getting into other markets.
A lot of the concerns that are reported back to the department from clients are that, indeed, finding access to customers and matching with demand is a big part of gaining access to the markets, and so is overcoming some of the basic things you would always expect when dealing with shipping and customs clearance. There's a great deal of direct service you can get, and the trade commissioner service is free to Canadian clients who are able to work with it to get into a lot of different markets.
It's a very good time, as you mentioned, with all of this new access to markets opening up through the trade agreements. From a regulatory perspective, we have set up rules to try to create a predictable framework for business from a regulatory perspective, so that when our big trading partners are developing new rules that could have an impact on Canada, we've had them agree—whether it's CUSMA, CETA or CPTPP—to a set of rules that says they need to give an opportunity for Canadian businesses and the Canadian government to participate in the development of any new rules, so that we can provide our perspective on how they can be less impactful and less of an obstacle at an early stage. There are transparency requirements to make sure that they provide drafts of any new rules that would affect Canadian trade well in advance of the rule coming into place.
Even once the rule is finalized, our modern trade agreements require that at least six months, if not more time, is available from when the new rule has been finalized to the time it would actually have impact, so that there's time for businesses to be able to adjust to that change.