That's a very good question. We actually asked ourselves the same question and we came to the realization...first of all, we didn't mention this already, but there were pressures in Canada to have similar types of protectionist policies, especially at the municipal level. There was a campaign orchestrated by some members of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which ended up actually being quite helpful in these negotiations, because you know the threat of retaliation always helps move negotiations forward. But I think there would have been tremendous pressure in Canada for some sort of retaliatory measure. I think, especially in the current environment where business has been down because of the recession, any market restriction you put in place--whether it's between Canada and the United States, whether it's between two provinces here in Canada, whether it's with other trading partners--kills jobs because it bars you from accessing certain business opportunities. We've been saying all along during those negotiations that you actually get out of a recession and you create wealth by opening up and creating new business opportunities.
So I think that has always been our focus during those negotiations. If there had been no agreement, I think we would be in a situation where there would be strong pressures on both sides of the border to put more restrictions in place. Quite frankly, we've been so much on this issue that one thing we realized is that there are so many things that Canadians and Americans make together. In every sector you find stories of a Canadian supplier selling a part to an American supplier, to a Canadian company selling its goods in the U.S. and Canada or that might be using a U.S. distributor who's selling his products in Canada.
We are really talking about one integrated economy, in many sectors. The car industry is always the example cited, but I think you could make the case with companies in almost every industrial sector in Canada. That's certainly the message we try to carry with us when we go to Washington. We've got so many examples of Canadian companies that are creating jobs in the U.S. The kind of message that really gets your point across in Washington is if you can point to the impact you're having at the local level.
So again, I think without an agreement we'd probably be worse off. We'd probably be in a tit-for-tat kind of relationship with the United States, and I think we probably would...well, I can't say for sure whether we would have prolonged the recession, but I know we would not have stopped it faster.