Thank you very much. I'm encouraged by what I hear so far in the panel.
Honourable members, my name is Zsombor Burany, and I am coming to you as a patriotic Canadian who has been forced to accept funding from sources based in the U.S. and Europe for several very large projects. I want to talk a little about these projects. This addresses the root cause of what I think everybody here is facing.
These projects are all tied into energy natural resources and the reduction or the removal of carbon and other toxic pollutants. Each is in the range of $2 billion plus. Although they were all 100% Canadian in origin, over the past two years they have become or are in the process of becoming 100% foreign-owned.
The first one is a toxic waste processing enterprise that recycles mining tailings and purifies toxic water. It's a corporation called GROW Holdings. The second is a very large-scale battery recycling facility—lithium and a bunch of other rare earth elements. The third one is an enormous biomass capture enterprise that will be removing hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon and microplastics from the environment.
These were all emerging Canadian resource and energy-based companies that have been unable to gather domestic support to scale their operations. Here is just a little bit about each one.
The toxic waste business developed cutting-edge waste treatment and cost-effective metals recovery and recycling technologies for the mining industry. Our researchers, led by Dr. Mishra, who is a leading materials expert, in partnership with Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Leuven university in Brussels and the University of Alberta, have over the past 15 years developed four unique patents that process toxic tailings and polluted water into usable materials and drinking water.
Why is this important? Because GROW is the only company on the planet today that can turn the toxic water produced at the tar sands at scale into potable water. In fact, the process allows the water to be perpetually reused instead of having fresh water always flowing in and spent water flowing out into the waterways. It's a huge win for the environment and energy production.
Through a related patented process, GROW can also convert toxic red mud produced by aluminum mines into usable safe materials like pig iron. There are billions of tonnes of toxic red mud around the world that need to be treated. Toxic red mud just sits in settling ponds. We Canadians are the first to figure out how to safely process and eliminate all of those harsh chemicals, at a substantial profit. Unfortunately, growth funding was only available out of the U.S., so GROW is no longer Canadian. The technology was invented by Canadians. The proofs of concept, pilot projects, peer review and patents were all led by Canadians. I'm proud of the achievement and very saddened by the outcome.
The battery business is Li-Cycle. Please look them up. There is a wonderful two-minute video that explains the development that's taking place. It will be the largest battery recycling facility in the world and is under construction currently in Rochester. In fact, they have plans for three more identical facilities for the U.S. and Europe. Let's look at where the funding came from.
To fund their $2-billion project, Canada provided zero dollars. South Korea—and I don't even know why they're in this mix—provided $172 million U.S. The U.S. government directly put in $400 million, and then the U.S. bond market raised another $1.5 billion. The founders are Canadians and most live in the GTA. They are in the process of relocating to the U.S. and already have 300 employees there.
Finally, the biocarbon project is completely funded through Europe and U.S. The technology was developed in Canada and the founders are all Canadian, but all of the benefit will go to the U.S. and private investors—the same story as the previous two.
There is no shortage of good ideas and capable people in Canada. As a nation, we continue to generate brilliant, leading solutions, so finding the answers is rarely the problem. We just can't get the big dollars to build out the big ideas. We desperately need very large-scale loans at very low interest rates to build out these initiatives.
None of the examples I gave required that the founders invest millions of their own money or have huge investors coming in. They were looked after. They received a little bit of capital in the beginning and then very large funding at low or zero interest, with repayment holidays for five years. It would cost the government almost nothing to do this, and the benefits are enormous. Every one of the founders of these businesses I mentioned earlier would have loved to build their businesses in Canada and expand to foreign markets, but they have been literally forced to uproot their families and go to where the money is.
You want to—