I believe you said, “both countries and their workforces”.
At Clean Energy Canada, we've been working on trying to build Canada's EV battery supply chain for a few years now. We have convened stakeholders from across the industry, from mining, from automotive parts, from auto assembly all the way through to battery recycling. We have included academics and representatives from labour as well.
We acknowledge the threat that China posed to the North American auto sector. We acknowledge the huge decades-long head start that China has and how much China dominates global supply chains. We have specifically looked at what sorts of competitive advantages Canada has to offer and how we can complement the U.S.'s approach on initiatives and strengths because we have a different set of strengths. As Mr. Volpe talked about, we are very strong on the upstream portions of the battery supply chain, something that the U.S. doesn't have as much wealth in. The U.S. has a huge market size that we are able to leverage, as well as a lot of dollars to spend.
Certainly, aligning with the U.S. in building out a North American EV supply chain is a top priority for us and is a winning approach for both countries and our workers. However, we definitely have to keep consumers in mind. Something that is going to make or break the success of that future North American industry is that North Americans keep buying EVs. We need to make sure we have a strong and growing market for this growing industry to serve. Figuring out how to build and to sell affordable EVs is going to be the nut that needs to be cracked.