Thank you.
The issue you raise in Quebec is one that we see across the country. A lot of the Canadian IP that's generated is offshored or being sold, and it's really because Canadian companies don't have the freedom to operate. The underlying IP is already owned by those players that acquired them, and it happens across the sector.
If you think about something like critical minerals and the whole electric vehicle value chain, success is having Canadian companies owning critical IP across the entire value chain. What the Americans and the Chinese do is that they watch Canadian companies start to grow, and they say, okay, this is a company that's going to help reinforce our electric vehicle value chain, and so we will acquire that IP now for, let's say, three to 10 times its worth, because we know that if we have the whole value chain, we can get those innovation returns.
These companies are specifically being targeted. The U.S. Department of Energy, I believe, has a list of the critical IP-holding companies. It goes and shops around and buys these companies for more than they are worth today, recognizing that these are going to be of critical value for the entire electric vehicle, critical mineral continuum of valuable IP.
It's not an open market. It's happening, and the Chinese and the Americans are best known for doing that.