We had a lot of success with the CanExport program because we were funding women to go on trade missions for the first time. We were training them in how to do this. Just when they're getting their feet wet, they're all enthusiastic about doing what they're doing, and now they want to go again. They probably need to go about three times before they really make the kind of progress that they want to make.
However, they're still starting and growing their business, and if you look at the stats, you see that start-ups are very good at exporting. They start out with exporting on their mind, so they're feeding their business and how they operate their business to be exporters. This is when they need this vital support.
Our funding originally came from, and still is coming from, the regional agencies, unlike those funded by ISED and so on. If they were funded by ISED, the government representatives automatically went. We were inviting them to go because they had [Inaudible—Editor] part of our original planning and programming, but I think it's vital that they go.
It could be because we're going to the United States rather than to the Asian market, the Netherlands or whatever opportunities might come their way. Maybe we need more exporting there, because I think that 60% of our exporting is to the United States. However, because there was easy access, we found that we wanted to start with the United States: The culture is similar, and it is easier to learn to become an exporter into the United States, especially in the food industry. It's easier to get into the food industry in the United States than it is across Canada, which is another problem we're trying to tackle.