Building on that, the red tape issue is important and it's not just in foreign markets. In the animal vaccine market there are companies that produce vaccines here in Canada that Health Canada is no longer giving a certificate of quality to and therefore cannot export because under the rules of Health Canada, they have to be selling that product in the Canadian market. Frankly, that's stupid. We need to do a better job of reviewing the regulatory system, making sure that we have regulations in place here in Canada that don't impede our companies as they do business internationally.
One of the biggest challenges though—and I think Joy would also agree with this—is communicating opportunities but also communicating the services and the partners that are available for small companies to work with. If you have a lot of exporters right now—I can tell you on the manufacturing side, when you take a look at the after-tax profit margin of small companies in Canada and you ask, in an eight-hour production shift, how long you have to work until you make a profit, pretty much right now you have about five and a half minutes to make the money you need to reinvest in business growth. That's one reason a lot of companies are extremely risk averse. They focus more on getting payroll out the door, and that's why they look for the biggest returns, the safest market.
If they're going to change that thinking, they need to be able to partner to reduce the risk in a way that makes sense for them. They get a bigger return and they can see the opportunity. It's all well and good to identify export opportunities or import opportunities or partnership opportunities, but often, you don't know if this is a qualified lead here. So many companies get burned because they may see the opportunity, they may rush into a huge market, but when they get there they're not too sure about the people they are dealing with. It takes a lot of time for a small company to build up a successful export business.