I guess overall my experience with all of them has been very good over the years. We've been in business for 35 years. I've seen a lot of changes. Many of the changes are a result of government changes, government priority changes, and rollback or cutbacks in budgets. I think they all have a role and I think they all can help Canadian companies. They've certainly helped us in specific ways.
It was EDC that was able to get behind us and provide the guarantees so we can maintain our line for the export markets with the payment guarantee program they have—if something happens and your customer can't pay, or there's turmoil in that particular country—and the bonding. When you get into these countries, especially on infrastructure projects, they require bonding. EDC has been able to provide that to us. Some customers are hesitant to dealing with an SME from Canada, and the CCC gets in the front and then it's a government-to-government contract or a customer-to-government contract.
The area that I think they can really help with—and once again I emphasize the bureaucracy that exists in many of these countries is far more than we're used to, especially if you've dealt in the United States and try to go offshore—is the potential of corruption. I think that the Foreign Affairs, its local offices—as I said the first phone call I make is to the ambassador or the commercial officer—can lead us and help us through all of the tangle of uncertainties, local policies, and the things that are unusual. They've been very good at that. They usually have a commercial officer who is a Canadian, but they're supported by staff that are local. They have access to all the information that we ever needed. If I say there's any one thing that's been helpful for us in going offshore with our first sales in Egypt in the early 1980s, it was External Affairs.