I will call this meeting to order.
First of all, thank you all for attending the meeting on a Friday afternoon. It's our 12th meeting of the standing committee.
We're starting a new study today, on critical minerals and associated value chains in Canada, so it's a fresh start.
Before I get into introducing and thanking our witnesses, I want to let you know that there's a vote in the House of Commons this afternoon, which is expected to start at any time between five minutes from now and 20 minutes from now. As soon as the bells ring, we will have to suspend the meeting. However, if all of you are able to be available after that—the vote should probably take 45 minutes to an hour, tops—then we can come back and continue the meeting. We'll get through the vote as quickly as we can; it could be less, but that remains to be seen.
Thank you, all.
All of our witnesses are familiar with our process. I think all of you have been to committee before, so I don't need to spend any time, or certainly any length of time, explaining the process.
You're free to speak in either official language, and in fact you're encouraged to speak in both official languages. You will be asked questions, most certainly in French and English. You have translation services available. We're doing these meetings by Zoom. Sometimes that comes with challenges, such as delays and whatnot, so everybody has learned to be patient and to wait for things to click in and work.
The other thing I want to do is welcome our newest member, Mr. Lloyd. Thank you for joining the committee. I hope you will come to realize that this is a unique committee and that we get along pretty well. We do have bumps in the road from time to time, but aside from those odd occasions, things run pretty smoothly. We don't generally encounter some of the challenges that you see in other committees, and I hope that continues to be the case. I look forward to working with you.
Mr. McLean, if you and your colleagues could extend our thanks to Ms. Harder for her contribution to the committee while she was here, I would be grateful.
Let's jump in.
We have five witnesses here today. We have the Canadian Critical Minerals and Materials Alliance; the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum; the Department of Natural Resources, of course; the Mining Association of Canada; and, last but certainly not least, PDAC, and everybody here knows them.
Thank you all for joining.
The process is that each group will be given up to five minutes to make introductory remarks. At the conclusion of all the presentations, I'll open the floor to questions.
On that note, why don't I start with you, Mr. London, since you're by yourself?