Hello, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, committee. I've had the best IT people working on my system, but unfortunately my video is still not working.
I want to welcome the officials who are before the committee today and to thank them for the work they do on behalf of all Canadians in promoting the energy and mining sectors in Canada.
Obviously, I live in Labrador, so I'm next door to some huge rare earth findings and a relatively new mineral development. My questions today will be somewhat geared around that in terms of what we're doing to help incentivize the industry itself and what we're doing to help those companies innovate around rare earths in Canada.
From many of the discussions I've heard, there are very few experimental labs to do the kind of testing they need to do. It's very expensive, as is the extraction technology. I'm wondering if the officials could bring me up to speed on what the future direction is around this particular commodity and where we're going in supporting these companies.