What I find interesting so far is that in Canada we've been talking about batteries. Everybody has forgotten that a car needs something to power it, which are the permanent magnets to build those electric motors.
What is happening in Australia is in reaction to what the United States has been trying to do. The U.S. is trying to get itself in a position to be a major supply chain for all of these products in the United States. The two countries that supply these particular rare earth elements are Australia and Canada. Australia jumped on the former American president's request to build a supply chain. Australia moved very quickly.
What Australia has done, in fact, is formed a specialty office in the Australian government to deal with these critical metals. Any small Australian company can go to this particular government office and it will assist them to get funding. That's the first piece of it. The second piece of it is essentially what I was suggesting we do in Canada. They have essentially said they will make their $1.3-billion modern manufacturing front available for this particular sector to access.
The Australians have been moving very quickly to get their supply chain in place, as a competitor to Canada. In fact, the Australian government says it intends to hardwire itself to what in essence is the new supply chain to develop these rare earth elements.
The Canadian government and this committee should remember that, even though we've been talking about batteries, a vehicle needs two things for it to operate. You need a motor and a battery. We've been focusing on batteries.
Interestingly enough, Canada has a very unique position in the permanent magnet sector. We have a material that the U.S. does not have, these particular rare earth elements which are needed for the permanent magnets in electric motors. That is one thing I would like to remind you of in Ottawa. We have something the United States does not have, and it is critical to the industrialized world. We have to develop it.