Thank you for asking me a question about critical minerals. It's an important issue.
I've often said that Canada is the only western country that has all the critical minerals, whether manganese, lithium, or nickel, required to manufacture batteries. We can use these minerals not only to make batteries, but also semiconductors.
We launched Canada's critical minerals strategy not only with a view to operating a fair number of mines, but also to do the refining. That's the idea behind it: we want to mine and refine critical minerals to keep most of the added value here.
This strategy attracted some major companies. You no doubt remember the GM‑POSCO consortium and its plant in Bécancour. It's got to the point that people in Tokyo are talking to us about Bécancour; that's indicative of the progress we've made. People know that we' re busy building ecosystems. We've also succeeded in attracting Umicore to Kingston.
As I was saying at the outset, one of the facts that plays a decisive role is proximity: the proximity of resources, markets and production chains. That's what enabled us to attract major investments, from companies like LG and Stellantis, which are going to build a plant here, not to mention Volkswagen. The CEO of Volkswagen recently said:
“Canada is [the] logical choice.”
It's not me who said it, but the CEO of Volkswagen in Germany. That says a lot about how far we've come.
That's what I tell people everywhere, on my trips abroad or here at home: we definitely have all the critical minerals needed for the battery ecosystem, and for the 21st‑century economy.