Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for your opening remarks, Mr. Smith.
I don't normally sit on this committee. I'm going to ask you a question that may seem a bit unusual to you.
I was in Sudbury a week ago, and I visited a nickel mine. It was explained to me that the main competitors for Canadian nickel mines are Chinese, but mostly African. Social dumping means that these competing mines are able to extract nickel at very low costs and drive prices down. If I'm not mistaken, the ore sells for $14,000 a tonne. That is a very low price.
In your strategy, are there any developments under way or measures to combat this phenomenon of social dumping? To strengthen economic development and partnerships, do you have any programs or initiatives that aim, on the one hand, through a public education component, to inform people about their rights and enable them to improve their working conditions and, on the other hand, to try, at the very least, to balance this economic functioning between the north and the south, which is often a problem?