Thank you very much.
Since we have people from the Department of Industry with us, I'd like to go back to what I asked the minister earlier.
In this desire to reorient aluminum production, I sometimes get the impression that there is a misunderstanding at the Department of Industry. The aluminum sector is part of a very specific industrial dynamic. There's primary production, which provides ingots, billets and sometimes spools. There's secondary processing, which is done by extrusion. Billets are pushed into a matrix to form various pieces. We cast aluminum. You need a mill to make aluminum foil.
Unfortunately, the aluminum processing sector is very weak in Canada right now. There's no mill in Canada. So wanting to use even more aluminum in applications, without a mill, is kind of wishful thinking. A mill costs about $2 billion.
So I understand your strategy. It's all well and good to want to redirect aluminum production to Canadian uses, but we have to be aware of the existing ecosystem. I don't mean to criticize, but I sometimes get the feeling that we're not aware of our aluminum ecosystem. We are major aluminum producers, but we mostly export it. The added value is created in the United States. It's unfortunate, but that's a fact.
I've witnessed that for 30 years, in Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean. My father, a former Alcan worker, keeps saying that everyone in aluminum processing has fallen flat. I don't see how we're going to get there in the short term.
Are you aware of that?
Do you have a strategy for that?