Thank you. I will preface any remarks I make by saying I completely understand that when you're looking at the finances of the country you have to assess where you can cut costs, and then you have to do it across all departments. I applaud the government for doing that, but when that happens, it's hard not to avoid sometimes putting out the baby with the bathwater. Hopefully we can take a second look and say that maybe in this case, yes, this is something that is worth it because it provides us a leveraged financial benefit that is more than going to pay for the investment.
I would say that in Japan you have two huge economic areas. You have the Tokyo area, which is called the Kanto, east of the barrier—the whole mountain—and then the Kansai, which is west of the barrier, and that's the whole Osaka area. They're huge economic generating areas and they compete very strongly.
So closing the office there had a very big psychological impact, and it was broadly noticed. I would say that having the people on the ground there to help our business people and tell us what's going on there is definitely of benefit to Canada if we want to further increase our exports.
On the ramifications, well, we've closed the immigration office, and there were other trade offices that were closed. I'm hearing rumours that the Japan External Trade Organization will close its Vancouver office in the next few months. I don't think that's retaliation. I just think that everybody looks at their trading partners, and who's their most valuable and who isn't. You take all the information, you throw it into the bucket, and you make a decision. But those kinds of things—the fact that we're closing offices there—don't play well into their decision on what they do with their offices here.