I am going to try to answer that question.
One thing the Auditor General did highlight was the fact that it would be useful to do a lessons learned exercise. While we didn't do a formal one, following the crisis we got together among partners—with Ontario and all of the federal departments—to understand what we learned from that crisis: what worked well and what didn't work well. I think the reason there was an award received for the work that was done is that principally there were a lot of very positive lessons learned.
The first lesson was about pooling resources, in the sense of working across organizations and understanding where there was expertise and where you had to draw on additional expertise to support the intensive work that was necessary under very tight timeframes. I mentioned already that there was financial expertise that had to be brought in. There was legal work that was done. There was actuarial work that was brought in. There were leading experts who were hired. It was about trying to, within a matter of weeks, get the intelligence that was necessary to inform the decisions that were made. That's one big lesson that was learned.
The other one was about working together and coordination. A decision that was made very early on was striking at very high levels, at a deputy minister committee, which would talk on a daily basis to keep track of where things were and to support the decisions being made.
Another one was a very novel approach, in terms of what we called “home and away teams”. There were a number of negotiation sessions that did take place outside of Canada. There was a very intense session in New York dealing with General Motors, and one with Chrysler that took place in Washington. There were senior teams where those negotiations were taking place, as well as senior teams that were in Ottawa. They were supporting each other in terms of trying to ensure we got the outcome that was desired. If Canada and Ontario were going to participate and support the companies, it was ensuring that we got the outcomes we wanted. As we've seen, the outcomes have been very strong, in the sense of both companies being very viable and vibrant now, and they're both reinvesting in Canada.