Thank you for the question.
Of course, Bill C-69 and the challenges regarding resource development broadly speaking have been a barrier to development and attracting capital. Quite frankly, companies will not risk capital if there's no certainty that they will be able to develop the resource they want to develop, whether it's energy or critical minerals and mining.
We know that the time it takes to have a mine approved in Canada is far too long, at 16 years and counting; however, the U.S. number is actually 29 years on average—just to put it out there. The point is that we have significant critical mineral deposits in Alberta and Saskatchewan: lithium, cobalt and nickel.
I also would like to point out that the bilateral mineral trade between Canada and the U.S. was valued at $142 billion last year. We need to not only develop our critical minerals but also develop our processing capacity, because otherwise we're still beholden to other jurisdictions to process what we mine here.
It is important to decrease the regulatory time frames associated with the development and to accelerate the permitting process, but we also need to develop processing facilities, which is another conversation.