Thank you, Minister.
And that is consistent with the wish I had expressed earlier to see the mining paradigm change a bit, to see processing being done near the resource, where the people are, particularly in the regions. We must not turn them into simply resource regions, that being a development model that has been adopted too often.
In the most recent Government of Canada budget, the government proposed $9.6 million in funding over three years to create a critical battery minerals centre of excellence.
At the committee, I recommended that the centre be in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, where there already is the Institut de recherche en mines et en environnement of the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, UQAT, which is also associated with the Polytechnique Montréal. And there is the Centre d'excellence sur les minéraux critiques et stratégiques Élements08 of UQAT, the Cégep de l’Abitibi-Te´miscamingue and the Centre technologique des résidus industriels: the CTRI. In addition, there will be the Rouyn-Noranda mining innovation zone. We have had some good meetings on this with the government of Quebec this week. Obviously, this involves the whole enterprise collaboration culture.
Would you look favourably on the possibility of a centre of excellence like the one I have described being located near the resource, near lithium, in particular, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue?