Thank you. I think it's a very good question, and it's one that we've been giving some thought to lately.
One thing that's really good about the permanent aspect of the deal, which has access to those 37 states, is that it puts Canadian companies on an equal footing with European companies and companies from other countries that have signed on to this WTO agreement. Many of the directives that were issued by the Office of Management and Budget in the U.S. basically said to procurement officers, if you want to spend this recovery money, you need to follow these guidelines. They basically said, you need to have open access to companies from these countries that have signed on to this deal, but they always said, except Canada. I think now at least we've been able to remove that, which is positive. It puts us on an equal footing.
I think for what you plan to do going forward, or what recommendations you could make, it's going to be important that we work with Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Van Loan and his staff, to put in place a strategy so that we can, first of all, communicate this agreement with procurement officers in the United States, because a lot of them are not necessarily aware of it. They're not all international trade experts; in fact most of them aren't, so it's going to be important that we communicate the benefits of this agreement to these people. I think there is a strategy that's being put in place with our consulates in the United States and our different trade commissioners.
I think the other part where your recommendations could be helpful is around using the trade commissioner service to get more Canadian companies involved in procurement markets in the United States, and to take advantage of opportunities that are happening, not only with federal spending but also with state-level procurement spending.