There are really two fronts. You're speaking about my former employer here, so it's very close to my career experience. One is that EDC already has the legislative authority to support outward investment. They can do it through equity. They have a significant critical risk program. They can do things throughout the whole supply chain to do more.
There has been a reluctance, though, on the part of the government—and this goes back over twelve years now—to see them carry out that role, so I think this is a chance to really have a mindset change. As I've talked to my friends at International Trade Canada, within Foreign Affairs, they're there. They understand this entirely. Some of their senior officials have been in China, serving Canadian trade interests for eight or ten years. Now it's a matter of aligning the legal authority with the activities of the organization.
I also think there's a power. If I were going to give advice to this committee as you do the EDC act review, I'd think very hard about giving EDC the ability to also support imports, particularly imports that are critical to exports. It's not lost on me that the U.S. Export-Import Bank, fifty years ago, was given the power to actually ensure that imports could be financed on competitive terms, because somebody understood that imports are integral to exporting. You have to really develop the whole suite of powers to ensure that all the government programs and institutions can support the whole gamut of international trade.