We thank you so much for gracing us with your presence and your expertise. This is really important for us.
I want to begin by discussing the issue of strategic metals and the need for a strategy. In the little town I live in, when it rains we see pink on the hills. That's cobalt, but cobalt is a very rare metal. It is at the heart of some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the blood metal. Unless we find alternatives, we are going to continue to perpetuate horrific human rights abuses. Lithium is another key metal. There is horrific environmental devastation caused by it.
We're looking at these alternatives in light of a geopolitical struggle with China, which is controlling more and more of the market. In Canada right now, just over the hill and down the road from me, we have the first cobalt processing facility, which would be good but the feed is still coming from the DRC. In terms of the government's commitment, we have mines, but in terms of having a strategy to ensure control of strategic metals like cobalt and lithium, I'm concerned that we're not taking steps that are important. For example, the selling of the Neo Lithium company to a Chinese state-owned enterprise strikes me as....
Why would we sell a Canadian-owned company to the Chinese when it's about lithium? They are trying to control the market. Was there an assessment done by your department on this?