Mr. Lake, when you talk about regreening, you're welcome to come to Sudbury and see innovation at its finest. We went from a city that once had NASA come to our community to check out how you can drive around on the moon to having regreening.
You know, from playing in pits, one of the first things I recognized, the first time I went out west, was that not all rock was black. Growing up in a mining community, that's what we saw. That's all changing.
With that, I'm going to focus a little bit on innovation. We have mining and supply services. SAMSSA is the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association. As we like to call it, it's the Silicon Valley of the mining world. Hundreds and hundreds of great companies in Sudbury have the expertise: great companies like, off the top of my head, Herold Supply, Fuller Industrial, and Cast Resource.
And one of the concerns we have with Vale Inco and Xstrata being foreign-owned is that we've just heard recently, yes, they've hired more people, but right now we're losing some of their jobs, especially the buying power, if that's going to Brazil. How is that going to affect the mining and supply sectors in Sudbury and right across the country?
But going to that, I've mentioned before Dr. Greg Baiden from Penguin Automated Systems. He's creating technology that will not only help the oil and gas sector; he's creating technology so we can mine on the moon. There was just an article in the Ottawa Citizen—I would encourage everyone to read that—about his creating technology for remote controls using digital light. It's way beyond my comprehension, but it's great to watch.
So that's what I think is important for us to understand about mining. Innovation will only enhance it. It'll make it greener.
You talk about climate change and innovation in your report here. Companies like Vale Inco and Xstrata and the SAMSSA organizations recognize the importance of innovation, and Xstrata and Vale Inco so much so that they invested, I believe, $5 million apiece into CEMI, the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation, in Sudbury. The Ontario government has invested in this initiative as well, to the same tune. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to convince the federal government yet to invest in CEMI or organizations like CEMI—or I believe you have SMIC, if I have your anagram correct.