Thank you, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Hamilton, for coming to the committee again today.
I hear my colleagues talking a lot about the impact that low oil pricing is having in Alberta and parts of the country. Northern Ontario and Canadian communities are also concerned about the drop in mineral pricing. According to Stats Canada, the job numbers last week showed Sudbury has the highest unemployment rate in Ontario, and the second highest in Canada.
The people in northern Ontario are also concerned about the missing opportunities we are having with the Ring of Fire, and the tremendous opportunity that this has as one of the most promising developments in the Canadian mining industry in the last hundred years. We've had companies like Noront Resources and KWG Resources that are really pleased with the budget in 2016. As you mentioned earlier, we've made significant investments with the municipalities in infrastructure and education capacity-building with first nations. The Ontario government is really pleased to finally have a partner at the table for resource-based initiatives like this.
My question to you is, when we look at the government's support for the Ring of Fire, for the mining industry...and it's also related to the investment of innovation and research for the forestry, mining, and all the resource-based...on the R and D.