Industry committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. My thanks to all committee members for inviting me to appear. I'm going to take a very practical approach to the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. We've seen what Mr. Biden has proposed and we're seeing what Europe is proposing. Never in our history h

Industry committee  You're absolutely right. This is why the new mining 2.0 is extremely inclusive. I've built mines in Africa; we've built mines all over the world, and now the social licence is very important. Though miners had a bad reputation for many years, we've changed considerably. The Canad

Industry committee  We need to grasp the opportunity. A huge shift is coming in the green industry. Canada is a nickel producer. As you know, Sudbury was the largest nickel-producing area in the world and it was all sold to the Australians and the Brazilians. Now we're seeing a second boom and a sh

Industry committee  First of all, we have these minerals. That's better than the United States. The North American Lithium Mine, which is up for sale right now, has drawn interest from two U.S. groups, one of which is funded by U.S. defence. Why are they interested? The Americans need both lithium a

Industry committee  Absolutely. it's part of our vocabulary and our values. Everything will depend on the new owner. It will be a matter of setting out guidelines and saying what we want. The offer we've made for the lithium mine includes all stages of processing, right down to the product that will

Industry committee  Critical minerals include rare earths and many other things. I refer you to a Natural Resources Canada document that lists critical minerals.

Industry committee  That is still the way it works.

Industry committee  No, absolutely not. It saddens me to know that we're considering offers from Australian or American buyers, when we have a Canadian group with international expertise and all the necessary financial means. It saddens me. For the same price and with, I believe, a higher level of e

Industry committee  That's right. The company assembles batteries using parts that come in from China, and then installs them in the trucks.

Industry committee  It's simply because no attention has been paid to the industry in Canada yet, whereas every country in the world is focused on it. Did you know that Volkswagen is going to have to buy 25% of the world's batteries by 2030? Canada won't even be in the running. We definitely need t

Industry committee  Right now, we need capital and entrepreneurs. Then we have to open a mine. As I always say, the real resource is the natural resource. When you have the ore, you can develop it at home. You can't open an anode manufacturing plant if you don't have graphite. You have to mine the

Industry committee  We have them, and that is important in itself. We have a lot of them. Quebec has a lot of lithium and graphite. Ontario and Newfoundland have nickel. We have critical minerals. The demand is going to explode. Over the next 10 years, the demand for lithium will increase eleven-fo

Industry committee  No, it belongs to Chinese owners who have decided to leave because operating the mine no longer meets their strategic and political objectives. They came in, they invested, and they decided to shut it down two years ago. All the employees were put out of work. They have been look

Industry committee  You are absolutely right. The difficulty is that the company that will mine this will be able to find ten buyers for their product. We, for example, have one of the largest graphite mines in the world, which is in Africa. Six customers buy all the production from us, and they ar

Industry committee  You're absolutely right. They have stated that publicly, that they're now looking to Canada to supply the critical materials. They are opening up all these battery plants. There will be about 20 of them. There are currently 20 battery plants in construction in the United States a