Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Before beginning to ask questions of our wonderful witnesses here today, I want to clarify something that Mrs. Gray said. She mentioned President Biden's speech to Congress a few days ago, and he was referring to the Buy American Act, which I believe all members of the committee know Canada is largely exempt from. The issue, of course, of buy America is very real, and our government is working very hard to secure exemptions for buy America, but his comments were with respect to something different.
I am going to turn to Mr. Breton first.
Mr. Breton, thank you for joining us today.
Without wanting to spend too much time on it, I want to quickly go back to comments made by another colleague about the strategic innovation fund.
As parliamentary secretary, I am very involved with investments designed to encourage our SMEs. I just want to mention that the fund has contributed almost $750 million for SMEs, including some from Quebec. You already mentioned Lion Electric, of which Quebecers are very proud, of course.
We announced an investment of $50 million to help Lion Electric build a new battery plant.