Thank you very much.
It's a good question around the processing. When we look at the minerals that come out of the ground and from source, obviously they're not in a form that can be used for things like battery manufacturing or the production of silicon panels, or anything of that nature. We do have a fairly sophisticated processing capacity in Canada. There are 27 different mineral-processing facilities across the country.
One of the issues is of course supply and demand. For example, there are no large-scale battery cell manufacturing companies in Canada yet. The demand for the processed materials that go into them is following where that demand exists, and that demand today is in China and growing everywhere. As Deputy Kennedy said, Canada is growing its importance in bringing in partners and bringing in companies such that those two things will fit together.
The other issue is that processing minerals is very unique in many different ways, and there is of course research and development. In the last budget of 2021, there was about $50 million allocated to NRCan to upscale and do more research and to support research on the processing side to get ahead and continue to develop the ability for Canada to be in a position to continue to develop its processing capabilities.