International Trade committee  Honestly, I don't have a solution for how you would finance outside of Canada right now. I think it just slows down the pace of growth as you build up equity in those countries and you establish banking relationships in those countries. Philosophically I'm kind of opposed again

International Trade committee  No. Only if we're looking for a way for the shareholders to divest their interest.

International Trade committee  Thank you. Yes. I alluded to this earlier too. As Chuck just said, when we hire employees we first look to Canada. If we can't find the employees with the local knowledge we want in the market we're expanding to, we're forced to hire within that market. Sometimes it's an arduou

International Trade committee  The government program that we use on a regular basis is EDC, and that's to insure our receivables. I think they do an excellent job.

International Trade committee  From the Canadian government? No. There are no barriers. The only barrier, really, is the level of risk tolerance we're willing to accept to grow outside of Canada. We will hit a level where, if we can't get additional financing from either Canadian banks or banks outside of Cana

International Trade committee  Thank you. We're working right now with the federal government. There are really two initiatives. There is one from the World Trade Organization, the green goods initiative, and I think 14 or 15 countries have signed onto this initiative. Any products that are considered good fo

International Trade committee  I echo what Charles said about EDC when it comes to financing trade receivables, as they do a very good job. Like his company, we do not make any sales outside of Canada unless we have insurance through EDC or the funds are wired to us before we release the product. On the finan

International Trade committee  You know it hasn't been a real issue for us at our company, but I could see how it could be if someone is on the road a lot, because it does take a bit of time to get your visas from certain countries. The other issue with respect to passports is travel back and forth to and fro

International Trade committee  In China, it's very slow. We all hear that it's a 1.3 billion-person market. That may be the population, but there are really maybe 50 million to 100 million people who have the means to buy our product. It's a slow process over there. It's just a question of patience. The mark

International Trade committee  We face a number of challenges. One that we're currently facing is managing our supply chain. Our supply chain is optimized for selling into Canada, but this means that we often have challenges selling into our other markets, particularly with differing rates of duty on the produ

International Trade committee  Usually it flows pretty smoothly, although we have some challenges, such as the recent slowdown on the docks here on the west coast, from L.A. right up to Prince Rupert. It caused us some challenges, but also for all businesses in North America. I would say that what hurts us t

International Trade committee  I think it would be assistance in marketing. Our identity is tied around being a Canadian-based company, and we Canadians have a very good reputation in general around the world for quality and innovation. Some help on that would be useful. We could use some help, possibly, with

International Trade committee  Thank you. I thought I would give a brief introduction to our company. We've been in business for 50 years. We are a western-based company, privately owned, with the same two families owning us today as the ones who founded the company. We've been expanding outside Canada for