Let me add that one of the things Canada has going in the hemisphere is that it's not the United States. For better or worse, the perception and image of the United States—although really not of the States necessarily per se.... At this point, a lot of it is a particular antipathy towards the current President of the United States.
Canada actually still has a positive image in Latin America, but I think the concern is—and I tried to underline this at the very end of my comments.... The common lament one hears in Latin America now, in business or in political circles, asks: Where is Canada? Where have you guys been? What's going on? You were engaged in the eighties in helping to resolve the Central American wars that were going on; you were involved in helping to develop the democracy promotion at the OAS in early nineties. Where have you been?
I hear that all the time. Maybe it's that Canada is not stick-handling, as they say, its reputation. I think a lot of it is that it just feels as if it's disengaged politically and in an active economic way.
I will say, and Eduardo referred to this, that the Brazilians were very upset by the way the Canadian government handled the dispute between Embraer and Bombardier and felt that the entire relationship was being held hostage to what they would term a parochial trade dispute.
There have been other instances. There was the ban on Brazilian beef, which was looked on in Brazil as a sort of petulant reaction by the Canadians to what was going on within the aerospace dispute. Then there have been a series of other miscues and faux pas in the relationship between Canada and Brazil. There is no excuse for the fact that Canada and Brazil don't have a good relationship—or haven't had historically; there are attempts to mend it. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever.
In terms of the environmental thing, I don't think there's any connection between--you refer to Peru, and I don't know what exactly those allegations are—a site of an extractive industry and Canada in general being able to export environmental services and consulting. I can't imagine there is any equating of one with the other.
I will add one other thing with respect to environmental standards. I would say that by and large, the day and age when multinationals can go abroad and engage particularly in extractive industries that are in isolated areas, and exploit—to use that word—to the extent that it might have happened before.... I would argue that those days are dwindling a little more. I think that has a lot to do with globalization, with the visibility, with the interconnectedness of NGOs, and the reputational risks that are attendant to getting companies a very bad reputation for doing things like that.
That brings us into the whole area of corporate social responsibility and what's going on there. Whatever the allegation may be with respect to Peru, I don't think it has worn on Canada in general, or on Canadian industry in general in Latin America.