There are many resources available. I would say that the biggest difficulty stems from the fact that there is no one-stop shop giving us access to information about the resources, because there are many resources. For example, the ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation du Québec or MAPAQ, took a long time to tell us that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada could provide us with a different kind of assistance.
As soon as we got in contact with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, we received concrete assistance, training, and even references about clients and about market demand. We also took training programs to put us in contact with other markets.
It might not be communication between the different stakeholders that is the problem. The company started operations two years ago. On Friday March 20, I met with representatives from the Quebec-Canada Agri-Food Export Group. This group manages many subsidies and federal-provincial funding programs. I had never heard of this group until they called me to say that they had been referred to our company by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada because they had a client who wanted maple water.
In my opinion there is a missing link in the chain of communication between MAPAQ and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. An agricultural company in Quebec will tend to go to the ministry or department that is closest to it. There is really a missing link in terms of the communication between the federal and provincial departments. Essentially, these two departments are identical, one is federal and one is provincial. They simply need to inform us that this assistance exists. That seems to be the most difficult thing.