Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Guelph. I enjoyed learning about her riding this evening. I think she is a good advocate for her riding and for auto industry innovation.
She talked about a critical minerals strategy. The problem is that there is no such strategy. If there were, it would be focused on processing.
What is happening right now? Right now, we are dependent on China, which controls 80% of the lithium market and over 90% of the market for the many strategic critical minerals needed to manufacture electric batteries. These critical minerals are currently being dumped. Instead of having a proactive mining industry ready to extract the resource for nearby processing, and instead of a sustainable and robust North American supply ecosystem for automakers using battery cells manufactured in Quebec and Canada, these resources are being sent out for export. The same applies to oil and gas; the same applies to everything. The government is choosing to export resources rather than use them to create added value here at home.
Would my colleague support the creation of a mining industry that processes resources near their extraction site?