Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, I hope everything is well. I have been waiting for a while to be in a position to ask you questions, and here I am.
I want to chat about what you mentioned in your opening remarks about the mining sector, which is near and dear to my community here in Sudbury. Actually, yesterday I met with a Glencore representative and discussed the footprint they have here in Sudbury. We have in Sudbury probably one of the greenest mines and greenest mining sectors in the world. Basically, the footprint of one of their mines is actually smaller than the Canadian Tire at the end of the street. It is amazing, the innovation going on in this sector and how it has transformed itself.
As we see our economy shifting in the energy sector to the clean energy that we require, battery-electric vehicles will be key to that. They will need batteries, certainly, and the critical minerals that we extract here and in your province as well. I know that Vale Inco is in your province and very important as well.
I really want to hear your input as to where you think this sector is now with the potential of the battery-electric vehicle sector and the role of Canada in the world. When I was PS, I had the opportunity to meet with a lot of international ministers of mines and energy. They were looking at us as one of the tier-one destinations and asking us what we were doing. Sometimes in Canada we don't look at ourselves like that, being the modest people that we are.
I really want to hear from you guys on where you think the sector is right now and the importance of this sector to our economy.