Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question will be for Ms. Lisa McDonald of the Prospectors and Developers Association.
First of all, I would like to place on record my appreciation for the contributions of the mining sector to our country's prosperity and the standard of living that we currently enjoy. Some of us with comfortable paycheques who live in urban centres in our comfortable homes don't really appreciate the hard work done by the men and women working in the mining sector in a tough physical environment.
The mining companies and the several generations of Canadians who have worked for those companies have contributed greatly to our current status in the world. According to the numbers I have, in 2020, I think the mining sector contributed about $107 billion to GDP and had about $103 billion in export.
I also understand the high amount of capital that is risked in prospecting and in developing a mine and the long-term nature of developing a single mine, especially when almost 730 of Canada's 1,350 mining companies have operations abroad. I know how tough it is to enter into these markets in Asia, Africa and South America and to operate there, so I would like to place on record the contributions of the mining sector to Canada's prosperity today.
As we did in the past, we are once again banking on the mining sector going forward too. The single biggest technology change that is available to us to fight climate change is the energy transition in adopting battery-operated electric vehicles and also in adopting a battery for energy storage, making our solar and wind energy projects much more viable. Again we call upon the mining sector to contribute in developing critical minerals in Canada. We have announced our critical mineral strategy, which I think was in part developed in consultation with the mining sector in Canada.
On that, we can have discussions with Ms. McDonald later on, offline, because this study is on the operations abroad, with 730 Canadian companies operating in many different countries, especially in South America and Africa.
My question to Ms. McDonald is this: What kinds of competition are you finding these days in developing mines abroad?
Having been born in a developing country, I really appreciate that mining projects bring much more economic development to the local community than any other aid given to these poor countries. With the changing global scenario, what are the challenges you are finding, and what kind of competition are you finding, for Canadian companies setting up mining projects in Africa, South America and other countries?