Thank you, Mr. Masse.
I'll just say that I think probably government officials may agree with you in questions tomorrow that the national security review process needs to be more robust. It is probably not resourced to the extent it needs to be. Intelligence assessments on these foreign direct investments are very difficult and take time, and we certainly need to work with allies to think through them, which is one of the reasons why I am so struck by the fact that the government was so confident that it didn't need to even invoke the second 45-day period that's available to it before it goes to a full national security review.
I would also like to take up your point about losing start-ups, because I think this is very significant, not least in the critical minerals industry. What we are losing with regard to the Chinese takeover of Neo Lithium, at a pretty extraordinary price tag, is a start-up. Neo Lithium is a junior miner with this project in Argentina, which is a kind of pilot project, a pilot plant extraction effort. It recognized—and it's clear in the company's own transactional documents—that it needed more capital or a partner to be able to really bring this asset online.
It found that partner in a Chinese mining company, not in a western one. I think it is important—and it should have been important to a national security review—to reflect on that fact and on the significance of losing start-up capacity, which is not just about a mine asset in Argentina. It is about, as I've said, technological know-how and intellectual property, and about the future, and we have cut ourselves off from that by failing to think through these issues more significantly.
Thank you.