Starting with your question on the ports, within our membership, particularly given the issues that arose in the port of Vancouver with the truckers' dispute a year or so ago, we're seeing that companies are looking to minimize or spread the risk. They are starting to look more and more at using east coast ports.
For a lot of companies, I think there's certainly a lot of importation of goods from China and Asia that would continue to come through the port of Vancouver. For a lot of our members, I think the port of Vancouver will continue to be the principal port they use.
We are certainly looking, because of the concerns with respect to our west coast ports. We're seeing more and more of our members potentially looking at Halifax and starting to shift some of their imports through the port of Halifax.
In terms of our approach to our ports, I think we definitely need to have a comprehensive and an integrated policy that looks at both the west coast and the east coast and at how they work together.
On the issue with China, it's actually unfortunate that Mary Anderson, who's the president of the association, isn't here. She's currently visiting Hong Kong and China.
China is clearly an extremely important trading partner for Canada.
I mentioned the issue of integrated trade and the fact that I think we've traditionally looked at exports as being good and imports as being bad. We want to promote exports and, I guess, discourage imports. We're finding more and more that companies are both exporters and importers.
We have increasingly integrated supply chains around the world. In order to be able to compete globally and to compete in the U.S. market, companies are looking for cheaper sources of supply for their parts and components.
I think that's important to bear in mind when we're looking at our trade relationship with China and at other emerging markets around the world. Being able to source in those markets can also help Canadian companies that are manufacturers and exporters compete globally.