Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Sean Strickland, welcome to committee.
This Thursday, I will be visiting one of your facilities to make an announcement on the apprenticeship service program. Because the announcement has not been made, I will not comment on that now.
Mr. Breton, welcome back. It's nice seeing you again. During the last advocacy day, I didn't meet you, but I did meet two of your members.
Mr. David Billedeau, I will go to you on the thing you mentioned about the mining projects and the time required from conceptualization to the actual production of a mining project, which takes about seven years to 10-plus years. I want to pick your brains on the Ontario regional table that was recently announced. That's part of the nine regional tables announced by the federal government jointly with the provinces to work on the resources, timelines and regulatory approaches to develop critical mining, clean hydrogen, nuclear and sustainable forestry.
However, before that, we are glad that we are talking about the Inflation Reduction Act. In my view, in addition to this act, we should also concurrently look at the CHIPS Act of 2022. It is called the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which was passed by the United States. It is a $280-billion legislation.
The focus has always been on the chips production, but out of $280 billion, while $52 billion goes for the chip production, $200 million is going to regional technology centres to focus not just on the chips, but on the energy technologies, biotechnology, etc. In my view, that act is basically a new industrial policy statement of the U.S., and that will affect us if we don't focus on that too. My view is that we have to look at both the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.
Canada is prosperous because of our trade. Trade accounts for 65% of our GDP. As we all know, the U.S. is our major trading partner, so our prosperity, standard of living, everything is dependent on the trade with the United States. That makes it very critical for us to look at things that are happening in the U.S. and to take measures.
Mr. Strickland, you mentioned two things that are very important. You said that we can't respond line by line, which is very true. We can't match dollar for dollar every dollar that the U.S. invests, but as you mentioned, we have to respond smartly. That is what Canada has been doing. In the last seven years, as a member of Parliament and as a member of this trade committee, I have seen that political parties, whether they are Liberals, Conservatives, NDP or Bloc Québécois, all work together when it comes to critical things on which we have to deal with the United States, like trade with the United States, which we saw in the last NAFTA negotiations.
There was a report just two days ago that the U.S. military is considering funding Canadian mining companies. That was a surprise. Why is the Pentagon investing in Canadian mining companies? Many Canadians are not aware that Canadian companies have been considered to be U.S. domestic companies for the different purchases by the U.S. Pentagon for a long time. In fact, the defence production sharing agreement that Canada has with the U.S. dates back to 1956. Now, under that, we are seeing the U.S. responding to the possible investment in critical minerals in Canada today, which is a good thing.
Before going to the Chamber of Commerce representative—Mr. Simard, I am glad you are here—I have some questions that are not directly related to that, but this is my first opportunity to talk to you.
The aluminum industry, as we know, is key. It is one of the critical minerals. However, what I have seen is that during the last 15 to 20 years, there was no increased production capacity in Canada. We have seen news announcements coming up in other parts of the world, including the Middle East. However, except for one small smelter, nothing new has come in. In fact, the production of aluminum in Canada from 2011 was slightly below three million tonnes. Now, in 2020, the numbers are higher, with slightly more than three million tonnes. Basically, we are stagnant in the capacity to produce aluminum. Maybe the reason is that out of the 10 aluminum smelters we have, nine are owned by Rio Tinto and Alcoa.
Does the foreign ownership of Canadian aluminum companies consider Canada just as a branch office to cater only to the United States because 90% of your production goes to the United States as exports, while we have signed a free trade agreement with the European Union and have the CPTPP with the Pacific nations?
Why are we not seeing aluminum production, installed capacity for aluminum production, going up so that we can use the cheap and clean Canadian power that is available to produce aluminum and to export to Europe and the Asia-Pacific countries?