Good afternoon, everyone.
I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to the twelfth meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology.
Thank you to the witnesses for being patient today. I apologize for the delay; there was a vote in the House.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, January 26, 2022, the committee is meeting to study the sourcing and processing of critical minerals. Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members may attend in person or use the Zoom application. I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants of this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted. As for the public health measures in place, at this stage, you know them all, so behave accordingly.
It is my pleasure to introduce today's witnesses. First of all, I must point out that the meeting will end at 5:45 p.m. We're going to try to take all the time allocated to us and spend as much time as possible with our witnesses.
The first part of the meeting will end at 4:45 p.m.; from the Government of Ontario, we will welcome the Honourable Greg Rickford, Minister of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry.
During the second hour, we will have Mr. Benoît Plante, professor at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue; Mr. Peter Xavier, vice-president of Sudbury INO at Glencore Canada; from the Québec Mining Association, Ms. Josée Méthot, president and chief executive officer; from Stromvolt Americas, Mr. Robert Kunihiro, director of strategy; from Summit Nanotech, Amanda Hall, a geophysicist; and, finally, from Vale Canada Limited, Mr. Juan Merlini, global director of sales and marketing; and Mr. A. J. Nichols, director of corporate affairs.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being with us.
Without further ado, I give the floor to Mr. Rickford.
Minister, you have the floor for six minutes. We will then move on to the first round of questions.