Our major mission in the United States is to become better known and to have the United States understand us better and realize how important we are to them. It begins in Washington with an ambitious agenda, led by the ambassador, of outreach to members of Congress, but it continues all around the country. We have about 20 offices around the United States, some of them tiny. We have two people in New Jersey, four in Phoenix, five in Raleigh-Durham. They have an ambitious agenda of out-calls, both in the business community and in the political and civil society. The message always is our mutual dependency and the mutual benefits that come from our relationship.
In recent years we've been, I hope, a little more creative in some of what we do. Several years ago we established something called Connect2Canada. It's an online membership where individuals who subscribe can find out all sorts of things about Canada, from energy to trade to culture. There are over 40,000 Americans who have subscribed to it because of their interest in Canada.
Several years ago we began an initiative in Washington called “all politics is local”. Our consuls-general from all around the country converge on Washington once or twice a year for an intensive one-day program of calls on members of Congress. One day like this reperesents 70 or 80 individual meetings with members of Congress. You repeat this enough times, and you find yourself in front of pretty much every member of Congress, telling the Canadian story and leaving behind fact sheets.
I know the interparliamentary group has had a very active program, both in Washington and regionally. So we're working at this. There are 300 million Americans, though, and it will take us a while to talk to every one of them.