Natural Resources committee  Unfortunately, I'm not sure we have the details of what each of those would produce in terms of how many you would need to make up a 20% market share. Ian could have provided that information, or we may be able to come back to you with it if you would like.

Natural Resources committee  Sure.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  If I may, the Canadian industry, because it is so dependent on the resource sector to begin with, is very sensitive to the overall health of the resource market, and the last two years have been a significant challenge in mining and metals. So I think that has drifted into what may still be a very attractive opportunity in the rare earth metals, but there's a general uncertainty and discomfort with the mining space in the last 24 months.

Natural Resources committee  Generally.

Natural Resources committee  Maybe I can start. I think your understanding is good. The four points that you brought up have identified the issues and tell me you appreciate what the challenges are. The conversation about knowing that you can sell your product is a common one throughout the mining industry.

Natural Resources committee  We have had a couple of preliminary conversations with the minister and with some of the minister's aides around this. The challenge, as Dr. Papangelakis identified, in some cases is to find a model that is effective for industry and effective for government. Where NSERC has been very effective in our traditional base metal well-established areas, it is not clear that it will be as effective in this emerging technology space.

Natural Resources committee  It's not a big number, six or eight. There are a number of smaller places, people who are looking and doing things, but in the major deposits, major opportunities, call it 19 projects spread out among fewer than a dozen.

Natural Resources committee  You asked about supporting and avoiding. I agree with Ms. Moreno's comments about policy and the confidence that would come from statements of interest and statements of importance. There is always an opportunity to look for funding, but I will confess that at this point it's not obvious what that funding would look like or how it would look.

Natural Resources committee  I think at this point the answer is that we are just at the stage inside of CREEN where we are trying to decide what the ask should be and how we could provide an appropriate invitation to government to participate. Those conversations have started to happen, but we're not at the point where we've identified something.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly some of those needs are being met, and Dr. Papangelakis may have some comments as well, just because of the interactions with universities. In the conventional mining space, Canada is already very good at supporting the development of mining engineers and of metallurgical process engineers and scientists who are doing those things.

Natural Resources committee  The answer to the first part of your question is yes. Certainly the science, the technology, and the infrastructure exists to do all of those front-end processing steps inside of Canada now. I do not have a good feel for the number of staff that would represent or the number of associated jobs.

Natural Resources committee  Persons—

Natural Resources committee  If I may, think of this in the traditional metals supply-and-demand cycle. As the Chinese exports decreased, metal prices spiked, and interest in the technology went through the roof. That has all kind of moderated a little bit within the last year or two, but I believe that there is a very real race to be in that early-stage production.

Natural Resources committee  I'm going to take a spot in the middle.