Evidence of meeting #13 for Natural Resources in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was lithium.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Mr. Bubar, we're going to have to hold that thought. We do have to stay on time.
Apologies, Mr. Cannings.
Mr. Lloyd, you have the floor for five minutes.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
February 22nd, 2021 / 12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, let me congratulate all the witnesses here who are remediating previous mining tailings, obviously getting value from where we didn't see value before.
I'll go right to Ms. Lappin here.
Ms. Lappin, thanks for adding more value to the bounty that we're making out of the oil-soaked land up in northern Alberta with some more lithium there. I know you came up with some solutions there as to how we can provide more financial support to the battery mining industry. Can you contrast that—if you could, please—with Nemaska Lithium, which is one in Quebec where all kinds of federal and provincial government money and all kinds of super flow-through were expended over the last decade, all to be worth, in the end, nothing? Now the Quebec government is going to reinvest $600 million in order to try to keep it alive. All kinds of government support goes into these, and often it doesn't get them over the line as far as integrating the value chain is concerned.
How do you think the proposals you're coming up with are going to provide a different result?
12:20 p.m.
President, Battery Metals Association of Canada
That's a great question, Mr. McLean.
Certainly, I think there are a lot of lessons that can be taken away from what has happened with Nemaska. We understand that the deposit there is strong, but we also understand that the production of battery-grade materials is challenging and complex. Moving forward, we have to take away those lessons learned. It's a strong signal from the industry that it's not just public money that's gone into what I've been referring to as the new Nemaska, the refinanced Nemaska. There is certainly strong support for that moving forward.
We also can't let those failures.... Maybe you're not calling it a failure, but those things are learning opportunities. We can take those lessons and apply them to the rest of the deposits that we have, because Nemaska is not the only lithium deposit in Canada. There are a lot of things that we can do to move those other deposits forward.
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
I can add to that, too, Greg, if you'd like, for a few seconds.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Actually, Don, it's okay. I have to get to some other questions here, but thank you.
I'm going to go to Mr. Hartland next.
Mr. Hartland, in terms of the contributions that native organizations are making towards mining developments in Canada, how do you see that being impacted by the Impact Assessment Act that's recently been applied to all mining developments?
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Yukon Chamber of Mines
That's a very good question.
We're not familiar so much with the Impact Assessment Act here in Yukon because we have a made-in-Yukon solution, known as the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board. It's a tri-party agreement between first nations, Yukon and the federal government when it comes to environmental assessment reviews. It's born out of the umbrella final agreement with Yukon first nations. There are 14 settled and self-governing first nations located within the Yukon. I should say that 11 out of 14 are settled; three are still unsettled. Those three that are unsettled, I believe, would be subject to potential legislation similar to this.
Do you want me to speak more about YESAB, or would you like me to save you on the time?
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
No, that's good. Thank you for saving time.
I have another question, for Mr. Moores.
We heard earlier about the cesium mine takeover—the Tanco Mine—by a Chinese entity in Manitoba. The Tanco Mine provides 85% of the world's cesium. We're not pure on this because it was sold by an American company to a Chinese company.
Mr. Moores, can you let us know what effect China's having 85% of the cesium in the world has on the supply chain?
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
That is incorrect information, Mr. McLean.
That operation has essentially no recoverable cesium left there anymore. That's why Cabot sold it; there was nothing left.
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
It was a producer of cesium. It no longer is, other than.... I think they're trying to recover some from the waste.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Managing Director, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence
I'll quickly give you my point on that.
Cesium is not my speciality at Benchmark. However, I would say that there should be alarm bells if one country owns over 50% or more of any raw material. That's our metric.
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
We can take care of that, Greg. Avalon has a tremendous cesium resource, and we're waiting to try to move forward with it.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bubar.
Do you want to add anything, Mr. Bubar, to the previous questions?
Do I still have time, Mr. Chair?
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
Which one would you like me to speak to, specifically?
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
It's the one you wanted to opine on earlier, on the Nemaska Lithium.
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
I followed the Nemaska story. The mistake they made was that they took a miner's approach and tried to make it too large-scale too quickly. With many of these operations, you're best to start out at a more modest scale and make sure your process flow sheet works. You start with a small, modest amount of product to the market and then scale it up after time.
If you build it too big and your plant doesn't work right from day one, then you're going bankrupt.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
I'll have to stop you there.
Thanks, Mr. McLean and Mr. Bubar.
Mr. Sidhu, you have the floor for five minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today.
Ms. Lappin, in your opening remarks you mentioned challenges faced, such as the high volatility, competition for capital, complex nature and policy development. Could you speak to these challenges and to the solutions you would recommend?
