I think the question of statistics and the measurement of our trade is an extremely challenging one. It's not only in the service sector, which by very rough back-of-the-envelope calculations is probably equal to our merchandise trade, but an enormous amount of our exports pass through the United States.
I think anyone who has visited Saudi Arabia will see a significant preference for Mercedes-Benz, of course, but also for large Canadian Fords and Chryslers. I don't have the exact figures, but there are probably 50,000 or 60,000 Canadian automobiles that are shipped out of our plants here in Canada, from Quebec and Ontario, to Saudi Arabia. They all pass through the United States and wouldn't be in our figures.
Those are very, very real issues.
On the question of embassies, I think our staff does extremely well with the resources that we have on hand, but there is no question that there is a very strong demand for a Canadian presence. I'll let Dwain expand on this point. It's not a zero-sum gain that we're talking about here, taking away from other resources that are needed in other sections. What we are asking the committee to consider is a larger pie. The return on investment from these facilities would be enormous, absolutely enormous.