It depends. To give you an example, yesterday one of our member companies contacted me. They're trying to deal with the REACH regulations in the European Union. I put them in touch with a trade commissioner in Europe, who's knowledgeable about these regulations, so they can figure out how to get their product certified and available for sale in Europe.
Some of those services are very transactional; some are a lot more relationship-based. We heard about some of them today. It can take time to build a relationship with someone, but once you have that, he or she can open up several new doors for you, especially in countries like the United States. We heard a really good example of that today. I think that is type of service we see becoming more valuable going forward; it's more than simply a transactional service. In the United States, we're usually more familiar with how to manage risk in the markets there, but there is a lot of things that only a government trade commissioner can provide. In other words, you can't get that in the private sector. To have someone on behalf of the Canadian government opening doors for you and acting on your behalf can do wonders.
As I mentioned, we've been around for 140 years as an association. It used to be the case with the trade commissioner service that we would charter boats and take trade delegations across the Atlantic. I think things have changed quite a bit over the years. Now it's not necessarily so much about only promoting Canadian exports abroad, but I think that a lot of it also now involves helping Canadian companies invest in other countries and attracting foreign investment to Canada, especially with the large multinationals based in the United States and Europe.
A lot of the work the trade commissioners do in the United States that I'm saying is relationship-based involves maintaining that relationship with large multinationals based in New York or in Minnesota, or wherever, and making sure they keep Canada on their radar screens so they will further invest in their operations and sustain jobs here in Canada.