Thank you for your questions, Mr. Guay.
First, relationships with first nations take decades to build, as everyone knows. For our part, it's been just over a decade since we began our discussions with the Manawan community, and in December 2024, we finally reached an agreement with the Atikamekw nation. We worked on building relationships. We have employees who are community members, and we sponsor most of the events there, but what really made the difference was when we were able to put two important measures in place. One was providing the community with significant economic benefits, which was very important, and two was finding ways for the community to participate, not just through employment, but also through contracts. That was really important to the Manawan community. It didn't want to just watch the project happen, without developing any expertise. We really put a lot of hours, years, into figuring out which contractors in the community could participate meaningfully in the project and creating connections with companies outside the community.
Second, any federal program supporting the equitable participation of first nations in projects is a good idea. I know that a program was just introduced. It's a great initiative to help first nations build real expertise so they have competitive advantages when bidding on major projects, since they may not have all that expertise to start. Those two measures really helped us take our relationship with the community to the next level.
Many other things helped us reach that level: being present, having conversations, being respectful of their culture in our work on the project. Fundamentally, though, it's important to have something you can offer the community so that it can enjoy tangible benefits from the project, not just watch from the sidelines. That's really what made the difference in December. We were able to seek out those incentives. We are going to carry on that work under the program that was just introduced, so that the other indigenous communities we work with can participate equitably, whether it's the Innu on the North Shore or the Abenakis of the Wôlinak community, just outside Bécancour. That kind of programming is very helpful to us.
To answer your second question, which was about logistics, I will say that we are lucky to have a project in Saint‑Michel‑des‑Saints. We are a two-hour drive from the project site, so logistics-wise, we're spoiled. We are fortunate to have an incredible geological deposit very close to the major centres, which is in line with what Professor Williams‑Jones recommended. Social licence within the community was central to the project's development, and we have the support of more than 80% of the local population. People can see the benefits of the project because it is so close. There will be a fully paved road between the two sites, with about a dozen trucks travelling between the sites. In comparison with the lumber industry, that isn't considered a major use of the road. Logistically speaking, moving between the two sites is fairly simple in our case, as compared with other mining projects, where it's basically take it or leave it. In our case, the infrastructure is already there.