We found openness and willingness in general, yes, but the concern that was raised by my two colleagues who did the Canadian visit was that the engagement of high-level government officials was limited. The access afforded by the Canadian government was perfect, and the organization was perfect to reach out to the agencies, but not to the ministerial or vice-ministerial level overall—to the people who actually are on the ground trying to implement the frameworks and policies that you have.
We were a little frustrated, then, by the level of engagement from the government side. The openness from companies was quite significant, but the level of understanding of the challenges—and of course I was briefed by my colleagues—was insufficient.
The general understanding of the international norms of behaviour, then, was good enough, but the understanding of the cultural challenges and practical barriers in rolling out your national commitments into practice in different locations of the world was clearly insufficient.
That's why we recommended to the industry association and the stock exchange and the other Canadian agencies to reinforce your own vision and your own global due diligence and analysis of risks around the world. There are some countries that have done quite a good job of this, for example the Netherlands, with a global fact-finding and risk analysis of its main supply chains. One of our recommendations is to basically start from where you are, which is quite good in comparison with almost anywhere else in the world but insufficient especially when you go abroad.