Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for your great testimony today. It's really important as we're talking about how we continue to drive forward with our sovereignty and defence capabilities and how critical minerals tie into that.
As mentioned, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, has talked about wanting to do more with leverage. Mr. Balsillie talked about leverage as well. Other witnesses also mentioned that we need leverage in what we bring to the table. We don't want to be just hewers of wood and drawers of water. We have to move forward and create extra jobs, as well as provide extra value not just to our Canadian economy but in what we actually bring to the table—not just the raw resources.
My question is for Mr. Balsillie, Professor Mykytczuk and Professor Exner-Pirot.
We're talking about how we need to do more on the defence research side, how we need to own the IP and how that cross-pollinates with the critical mineral sector. We have in Canada 10 of the 12 critical minerals on the NATO list. As I think one of the witnesses said, we have an amazing endowment. Let's talk about how we capitalize on that and how we actually turn it into leverage that can be used in our conversations on everything from defence, security and trade to how we drive forward in being a leader in the world rather than a follower.
Defence Research and Development Canada is a research organizations, and I think we need to talk about bringing in some of that skill set, as well as how that goes back into our universities, which are producing the next generation of employees.