[CRITICAL MINERALS]

[Greg Matlock] (32:59 - 33:46)
Welcome, everybody, and thank you for joining us for this panel, which is going to be on critical minerals, where we're going to discuss navigating end-to-end supply chain challenges and opportunities. We have a couple of great panelists. So we have Belinda Labatte, who's CEO and Interim Chair for Lomiko Metals.

We have Matthew Zolnowski, Global Fellow, Wilson Center, and also the President, GreyFriars, Department of Defense. And we have Kwasi Ampofo from Bloomberg. Looking forward to the discussion.

To kick us off here, I want to talk about what are the key challenges and opportunities as we look at balancing the global supply and demand for critical minerals, especially in light of what has been commonly referred to as this energy transition and the movement you've seen in that market. Maybe, Belinda, start with you. I'd love your reaction on that.

[Belinda Labatte] (33:47 - 35:42)
Sure. I mean, it's a good question. It's always interesting when you're in it day to day.

But I think that the reason I'm in this business is because I'm looking at the long-term challenges and opportunities, but mainly the opportunities. So let me speak to what I know best, which is the graphite and that critical mineral. It's one of the six key priority minerals for Canada.

And long-term, what I think is so interesting is that we know that the EV, the electric vehicle, is here to stay because the technology works. It's better. It's better for the environment.

And it works. And right now, I think what we're seeing is a little bit of a pause from gigafactories and automakers taking a bit of a pause. The market conditions are such that it makes sense.

But the long-term opportunities and fundamentals are to build that supply chain outside of China, knowing that we have the most prolific graphite belt in North America to be able to build that supply chain. So the latest stats that I have that I think are interesting is that there should be about 3 million EVs on the road in the United States by 2027. And when you work back, those numbers are about 200,000 metric tons of anode material is needed.

And Lomiko can supply approximately 25% of that. If you look at our PEA numbers, they're about 50,000 tons per year. So I think we really need to agree that we want to localize the supply chain and that we can do it.

As Canadians and North Americans, we need to do this. So I feel very strongly on the long-term fundamentals and that the opportunities will continue to come. And we just have to face the challenges in the short term.

[Greg Matlock] (35:42 - 35:55)
And I think it's interesting focusing on Canada. And like you mentioned at the end, it's really an America story, right? Localizing that supply is really an America story.

Matthew, what about you? What are your thoughts on it?

[Matthew Zolnowski] (35:56 - 37:10)
So one of my favorite graphics to try and tell the story, especially for folks who are not active participants in the sector, is I like to grab that all the metals we mined chart that shows up on an annual basis when the U.S. Geological Survey puts out their mineral commodity summaries. And it's a really handy primer to just kind of put all these different commodities into perspective. And I know it's a gross oversimplification, but it's worth bearing in mind that as much as we talk about, for example, the opacity or the risk in the rare earth market, it's worth noting that the rare earth market on a global basis is almost double the size of the lithium market.

And it's almost one and a half times the size of the cobalt market. So to say it another way, and again, this kind of picks up where Belinda was commenting, the critical minerals market and specifically critical minerals for the EV transition or just clean energy transition writ large, they have a very long way to go, both in terms of the aggregate scale up of these markets in terms of volume, but also in the development of market based solutions to actually manage risk in each of these commodities.

[Greg Matlock] (35:42 - 35:43)
You bet. Kwasi, what do you think?

Kwasi Ampofo [35:44 - 35:55]
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting times that we're currently in.

If you look at the market, as Belinda mentioned, currently, obviously, the demand side has slowed down for obvious reasons. And you need to understand that five years ago, if you take an average electric vehicle, it was a premium product. With a premium product, you are selling to a premium market, a market where interest rate doesn't matter, a market where inflation doesn't really matter.

But then once your product crosses that turning point and becomes a mass product, you realize that if inflation goes high, if interest rate goes high, it certainly affects that as well. So we've seen a slowdown in demand because of the macroeconomic factors we've seen. So I think that is sending a very challenging signal to the market and it's affecting the metals industry.

So that's number one. I think the second thing is also capital. And we can agree that almost every junior to medium scale mining company in the world at the moment is desperately looking for money.

And the reason being that obviously, we've seen governments trying to incentivize these projects. We've seen governments trying to introduce incentives and policies. But then you look at, for example, if the Biden administration gave one billion, even 10 billion, 10 billion is pretty much two or three lithium projects in Eastern Europe, right?

So as much as it sounds, as big as it sounds, these government interventions only could go a long way. And as such, we need private capital in order to ensure that the financial or the capital raising challenges the industry face is addressed. And I think we'll probably talk about the solutions later.

But then at the moment, if you talk to every junior or medium scale producer, it's really about finding capital. And the third thing which the industry is telling us at Bloomberg NEF is the fact that even if we raise the capital, policy instability is making us not able to deploy this capital, right? And it comes in various forms, either through environment, social governance, or either through policy uncertainty with demand response for government.

What we see currently is that what was meant to be the tailwind for the industry is now becoming a headwind, because there's no certainty. Greg, if today, for example, you started a mining project somewhere in the US, and you are looking to determine what will be the timelines to get your point right from first from discovery to production, I don't think any of the US government agencies will be able to give you a definite timeline. Because at the local, federal and state level, there's still not that streamlined process to ensure that you know what you're doing right from the beginning to the end.

These are the three challenges that I see affecting the industry that slow down demand, capital, not being in the market for companies to develop projects, and finally, the policy uncertainty environment, which is preventing projects from scaling up or even starting in the first place.

[Greg Matlock] (40:14 - 42:09)
Yeah, I think that those are great points, and it ties to a conversation we had on a recent event, especially your last one around the congruity or incongruity is probably a better way to phrase it on some of the regulatory and the permitting side. And if you look throughout the Americas, they're just taking vastly different approaches. And then like you said, even within the United States, just I mean, you have city, local, state, federal, different guidelines and policies that drive a whole lot of timing.

But I want to pick up on the second thing you mentioned, because I think that ties well into some of the concerns and opportunities and challenges on global supply and demand that's around investment and financing. So we talked about some of the grants or the incentives and some of the government funds. But you have this global push for, it's sustainable, it's focused on clean energy, but it's a balance, right?

And I think that's what we've clearly seen over the past couple of years. There's clearly a focus on energy security, and then there's a desire to operate in cleaner, more efficient manners, right? And so with that comes the need for capital.

And you're seeing financing structures such as public-private partnerships, grants, they're increasingly being used to support critical mineral projects. We'd like to take a quick moment for you to share your perspectives through a polling question. That question is, what are the most important critical minerals for a clean energy transition?

We have five choices. A, lithium, B, copper, C, nickel, D, rare earths, or E, all of the above. Please take a moment to respond to the poll.

And so I wonder, and maybe Matthew, I'll start with you and then go back to Kwasi. What are you seeing as far as trends that are shaping investment in this sector?

[Matthew Zolnowski] (42:10 - 45:37)
Sure. So first and foremost, I'm going to start my comments by just talking about what I'll call Western government finance, just because every jurisdiction is a little bit different. So in the main, there are five kind of key elements that Western governments are deploying in one form or another.

The first one is direct loans and loan guarantees. The second one is equity investments. The third one is cash grants or contracts.

The next bit is purchases. So offtake agreements. And the last one is tax incentives or tax penalties, tariffs, for example.

Of all of these, and Kwasi mentioned this up front, the grants and the contracts have probably consumed most of the attention in industry. The benefits from the Defense Production Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, both of those have garnered significant amount of attention because of the very large dollar figures and again, that's very, very high on companies' targets list for a couple of reasons. Number one is cash.

You typically don't have to pay back the grant or the contract, which again, if you're a junior or a medium-sized company, that's a huge advantage. And the second piece is when it comes to the tax credits, the reason why those are very popular is because those have a finite period of availability. And so if you don't get after those tax credits now, you're just leaving money on the table, frankly.

That being said, though, I characterize both of those as a sugar rush. Eventually, the grant and the contract money will be spent. Eventually, the timeline is going to run out on those tax credits.

And the extent to which they get renewed or topped up is entirely dependent on legislatures or parliaments, depending on where you look. And really, it's very difficult for legislatures to see beyond whatever their immediate election cycle happens to be. That being said, though, if we look out to the medium term, what I expect to be, frankly, to have a lot more staying power is anything having to do with direct loans, loan guarantees, and equity arrangements.

Again, all of the variables held constant. These are traditional investment tools that you've seen from development banks, from export credit agencies, and institutions like that. Again, those kinds of institutions have the ability to not only deploy capital, but to deploy capital at very large scales.

And it's outside of the traditional fiscal cycle that tax policy and grants and contracts are subject to. The big wild card is offtake agreements and purchases. There are a handful of Western countries that are starting to look at offtake agreements for stockpile programs much more seriously.

There are a handful of countries that do have them and operate them today. Again, at highly variable scales. And again, the key question is going to be, to what extent is this going to be something that governments are willing to sustain into the future?

We know that the credit instruments are going to be out there, but grants, contracts, tax credits, or tariffs, and then also purchases, those are very much a large question mark over the medium to long term.

[Greg Matlock] (45:40 - 45:42)
I agree. Belinda, Kwasi?

[Kwasi Ampofo] (45:46 - 49:00)
You go ahead. Okay, great. Yeah, so for me, I think maybe just to throw some numbers there.

So last year, Bloom again, or every year, I don't know, January, probably what we call our energy investment transition trends. So basically, we look at the energy transition investment, sorry, energy transition investment trends, ETIT. We look at how much capital is going into that.

Last year, $1.8 trillion went into the renewable energy space. I think about almost 30% in the renewable energy, another almost 30% into electric vehicles. And I think I will leave our audience to decide how much they think went into mining, because we are very closely aligned.

And I can tell you that it will be in the order of very, very less and less zeros, very little, if any at all. And for me, I think Matthew has outlined some of the funded sources. What I wanted to add is the fact that we all know that it's a parallel industry, like the mining industry or the junior mining industry.

And that is a startup industry. So I came up with what I call the shock tank test. And I think I would assume most of your audience are familiar with what the shock tank is.

So let's just imagine there's an episode of shock tank and Belinda or any other mining company doing something very incredible in the industry or for the world, walks up there, asks these judges that, can I get $100 million to develop the most important raw material to make EVs possible? And your guess would be as good as mine, right? Very little of these generalist investors would actually be willing to part with their money.

And I think that's a fundamental problem. Because just like Matthew mentioned, if you look at funding from governments, first of all, the timelines they look at, an eight year horizon is not even enough time to move a corporate project in the US from discovery to full exploration or to DFS or even BFS, Bankable Feasibility Study, right? So if you have a policy or funding policy that sunset plus ends in eight years, that is inadequate.

It doesn't address the full needs of the mining industry. So I think for me, it's really unlocking what I call the diversified capital market for mining. And that can come in the form of, I don't know, maybe venture capital.

We've seen startups being able to raise, what, a billion or two billion in a garage with simply a laptop and an idea to save the world. And here we are with an industry with full assets willing to contribute to the energy transition. So I think, for me, I don't have the answers yet.

But then really how to position mining as part of the transition, not an appendix of the transition. You take a market like Canada, as an example. There is a whole huge portfolio of pension funds dotted all around the world.

Now, if we do a stress test, how much of Canada's pension funds is exposed to early-stage mining projects? The percentage will be very small, right? So for me, I think those are some of the structural challenges in the financial ecosystem that I want us to look at.

So the mining is not considered an appendix. Mining is not considered whatever it is that generalists invest to see. But then see that's part of the problem, and a profitable one as a matter of fact.

[Greg Matlock] (49:03 - 49:09)
Perfect. Belinda, thoughts on that and or Shark Tank? I like the Shark Tank reference for sure.

[Belinda Labatte] (49:11 - 52:58)
Yeah, I'll build on both Matt and Kwasi's comments. Because I think that when I look at what we have received, in fact, Lomiko received the first historical concurrent funding from National Resources Canada and the USDOD, two separate grants valued at just over Canadian $16 million in terms of non-returnable, non-dilutive funding. And when I think about that, I think of it as one piece of something much larger that we are still building.

And we've had now probably 50 years of trade liberalization where we have come to this moment in time saying that's not really what's going to work in the future. It has allowed and enabled one particular player to dominate an industry that is vital to all of us. And that's really to ensure that we are working through technology to have a decarbonized economy.

And so the tools that we have, which Matt went through, I think are and that Kwasi has said, needs capital as well to be in tandem to those tools, are all part of something that's being developed. And it's being developed with tariffs, with incentives, with grants, with some private equity, but seriously lacking the private equity to come into that. Where I would like to see us go as a country and also in partnership with the United States is a new industrial policy that doesn't look top down at gigafactories and how much, and I just mentioned it, how much anode material we will need, but actually looks at a production goal and reserves so that we are really targeting clusters of critical minerals, stockpiled resources that we need to underlie all of these other good things that we want. And we've been able to do it with petroleum. The United States had a strategic oil reserve.

We've been able to do it with gold and being able to have deposits of that. But we haven't looked at it from the critical minerals perspective. And if you look at Canada, I mean, we have all of 31 critical minerals.

We have the know-how, we have the talent. What we haven't done is move resources into reserves. So we have less than 5% of global reserves.

There's no reason why we can't move that number up. And Lomiko is a perfect example. We have resources, 3 million tons of in-situ graphite.

We have moved 50% of the way through to get to a reserve, to get to a PFS. We need grants and we need private capital to come in. But part of that is a supportive industrial policy that says we are going to target how much graphite we're going to supply the world, how much cobalt, what we're going to do on the rare earths, and set down those guidelines with a permitting strategy that puts people in one room together rather than sequentially moving through a process, because it allows for a lot of miscommunication, misinformation to come through, because we're not all sitting at the same table together. So I think to wrap up my comments, everything that we have done in the past is not suitable for the next five to 10 years.

We need to develop new policy, new trade policy, and we need to be doing it now. Like, in this environment today. So I'm looking forward to being part of that.

[Greg Matlock] (52:59 - 54:59)
Yeah, and I think that kind of collaborative and cohesive approach, I mean, it's a requirement, right? And the other piece, and even starting back with Matthew's comments on some of the different mechanisms, is what's interesting is oftentimes we can get into a discussion on which one works better or which one should we be focusing on. Is it grants?

Is it equity? Is it tax credits? Is it permitting or regulatory policy?

And this is really an area where this is an and not an or, right? And I think, Blenda, even on some of your comments toward Dan, that we need a collective, collaborative approach where we're pulling on all these levers. Because as I think what you all were saying, and I completely agree with, is some of these things have different seasons, if you will, at different parts of the project, right?

A tax credit plays a different role, or a tariff, Matthew, like you were saying. It could be a credit or a penalty, right? You can encourage or discourage certain activities by through the tax codes.

And those play a different funding mechanism. But we need a number of these funding mechanisms to get these projects. This is a capital-intensive area for sure.

Now we'd like to hear your thoughts on another key part of today's discussion through another polling question. Which factor do you think is most critical for strengthening the supply chain of critical minerals? Here we have four choices.

A, diversifying sources. B, investing in local mining. C, technological innovation.

Or D, global partnerships. Please take a moment to respond to the poll. And thank you for your ongoing engagement.

Maybe one last question, sticking on the financing side, is really around de-risking. Maybe I'll start with you on this one. Anything governments, private parties, can do to de-risk these types of investments from a capital perspective to help move these things down the way?

I mean, Belinda just touched on some of this already in her comments. But I'd love your thoughts on that.

[Kwasi Ampofo] (55:00 - 58:34)
Yeah, I think it's important. I talked about earlier the issue on policy. And I think most times when you talk about policy streamlining, the assumption is that, oh, people are saying that governments should make mining policies less stringent.

I don't think that's the case. It's not mutually exclusive to have a streamlined policy that addresses all the ESG, all the environmental, social, sustainability, governance concerns, and also do it rapidly, right? Because most instances, what we, in our research, what we discovered is that most of the time, it's just really, it's the bureaucracy that slows things down.

It's not really the decision making. So I think there's a lot of capital sitting in the US. Risking that policy uncertainty from the permitting side could go a very long way.

The second thing I would also talk about, which applies probably more to, I mean, it applies differently if you look at Canada and the US. It's also about infrastructure, right? And if you look at some of Canada's previous bills or legislations that supported the critical mineral industry, a huge chunk of it was actually allocated to infrastructure, right?

So I think it's important to understand that US-Canada has a lot of resources going in its favour, but then it's important that infrastructure, and infrastructure is not just about roads, it's about energy, cheap, reliable, clean energy sources being closer to these projects. So I think that's number two. The third thing about de-risking, Greg, even if the US managed to, or Canada managed, Canada less for Canada than the US.

If the US decided to permit all its mines, who is going to mine these sites, right? I'm a mining engineer and a proud one. I couldn't convince the next generation to all of, I mean, of course, I don't expect everyone to go do mining.

Maybe I'll have Matthew talk about that, but there is a big skills gap in the US, and we crunch the numbers at Bloomberg NE of looking at the number of job positions that are still vacant comparing manufacturing to mining. And during COVID, of course, every industry recorded a dip. But then once there was a recovery, what we see is that manufacturing seems to have reverted to its moon, but the mining has still not recovered yet.

And I think as EY did a very important study on the skills gap, and I think it's quite a big gap as to what is expected and what is available. So de-risking, that would play a very important role. And I think the final thing that I wanted to say, it's really all hands on deck process in how we deal with communities, right?

And I always say this, that to reach net zero, we need to produce five times the amount of metals we're producing today. And depending on where you sit, that is five times the economic benefits we get from mining or five times the negative impact of mining today, right? And most of the people that bear the brunt of these negative impacts are the communities.

So I think just like Belinda mentioned, that the way we've done things the last 50 years, we'll probably not work the next five years or the next 50 years. It's important that projects are de-risked when companies, governments, civil society, NGOs, all are aligned and transparent with the way they deal with communities to ensure that it doesn't become the second point that prevents the world from reaching net zero.

[Greg Matlock] (58:36 - 58:49)
Yeah, what wonderful points. I think embedded in there, I think you said Matthew is going to help convince people that they should all go into mining. So stick it on that one, Matthew.

Any other points around de-risking these types of investments?

[Matthew Zolnowski] (58:50 - 1:01:44)
Well, honestly, I'm just going to repeat all of those points, but just kind of layer additional bits on top of it. So as you were saying, Greg, upfront, depending on where you are in the life cycle of a project, you're going to need different kinds of capital support. A junior miner might not necessarily benefit as much from getting tax credits, for example, and they're certainly not going to benefit from tariff policy because they're not making anything.

On the other hand, having just a cash injection of just, again, non-reimbursable funds is a huge benefit to these projects. Again, because they don't have to go back to the market to raise funding. Again, jumping in on infrastructure.

I mean, yes, it is absolutely about roads, bridges, airport or air facility and port facility infrastructure upgrades. But it's also about, again, I think a great example here is what the folks at Beck and Gore have done, and that is kind of presiding different, we'll call it industrial parks or industrial zones, where you can start to gain the synergies among all of the other different processing plants that want to exist next to each other. Again, it just makes a whole lot more sense that you can have relatively low cost power, all of your reagents.

And again, a site that's more or less kind of fixed for heavy industrial activities. Again, on the workforce side, and I think I probably should have led with this instead. And that is, I think that governments, small g governments, will be more successful if they focus on those things that only governments can do.

And if they let industry do those things that only industry can do. You know, only governments can set tax policy. Only governments can set permitting regulations.

In the very same way, you know, you really shouldn't undersell the tremendous brand and political power that if a senior executive from an administration shows up at a mine site or at a mine school and says, it is important that you citizens engage in this activity, people that never even thought about going to a mining school are going to check it out. I can say from, you know, again, having managed Defense Production Act projects during the pandemic, we had all kinds of not just, you know, industrial input problems and trying to ship things to get facilities built. But there is also a human capital problem that, you know, in many cases, people could not travel to the places we were building the facilities.

And so you had to work with the communities that were there and come up with, you know, innovative solutions to get folks trained or retrained to work in those new plants. So I guess those are the couple of things that I would offer on that note.

[Greg Matlock] (1:01:45 - 1:01:53)
Perfect. But Belinda, I think you started with this, but I'll circle back with you and see if you had any other comments on de-risking before I move into geopolitics.

[Belinda Labatte] (1:01:53 - 1:03:43)
First of all, you know, we do believe personally and with the company that projects such as ours will and should and really need to always be mindful that we can create a net positive benefit in the community and we can manage impacts. But we can also use projects like this to bring in infrastructure and other things that the community values and needs. And so we have to look at that type of reframing of projects like this, not as that we are takers, that we are, in fact, contributors to the local economy as much as we are to global policy and decarbonization, that more noble goal.

And then the second thing I would say is being the recipient of these amazing grants, the first in Canada where they were concurrent, but certainly not the last. More of these are going to be coming out. And I think that what we need to do is have instruments available that can unlock those grants right away, because they work very well from what my understanding is and where we're at.

I could see that once they are unlocked, they're going to be very efficient. So why are we not seeing private equity or new tools coming to the table that are going to be able to match those grants as they come out more and more? Provincial, federal, United States grants.

And that's where I think the pension funds can play a role. They are a perfect partner. They have a long-term view.

And they can come to the table to be the match when the due diligence has already been done on the proponent, right? Like we passed that already. So it should be quick and easy.

So that's my addition to what has been discussed today.

[Greg Matlock] (1:03:45 - 1:05:29)
And lastly, here's our final polling question for today's discussion. Which government policy do you think would most effectively support the responsible development of critical minerals? Again, we have four choices.

A, tax incentives for resource development. B, enhanced regulations on environmental impact. C, subsidies for research and development.

Or D, trade agreements to secure supply chain. Please share your thoughts in the poll. And thank you in advance for your valuable contributions.

Perfect. Well, as we get kind of to the last topic, we want to wrap up, get everybody's comments on some geopolitical considerations. As nations, as there's a push and a desire and an aim for energy interdependence and independence primarily, right?

We talked a little bit about the beginning, the phrase kind of energy transition. I think there's different ways to approach that word. It could be an energy evolution, an energy expansion.

But it starts with energy security. You've seen the focus over the past number of years there. And a focus on energy independence.

And securing critical minerals and access to critical minerals is at the top of that list. And so what I want to wrap up with and get everybody's thoughts are, what are the major geopolitical challenges and opportunities that each of you foresee in this evolving landscape, right? What are those opportunities and challenges?

This is a dynamic, a dynamic global market. It's a dynamic global time. And so I'd be curious as to each of your thoughts on there.

So why don't I go in reverse order of how we started. So Kwazy, maybe over to you, and then Matthew, and then wrap up with Belinda.

[Kwasi Ampofo] (1:05:30 - 1:07:10)
Yeah, I think moving on, it's still very volatile. And I always use, there's a lot we learned from COVID, unfortunately, despite the challenging times for each and every one of us. There are lessons that I think personally are learned in terms of how government reacts to uncertainty and volatility, right?

If you look at the initial stages of COVID, especially when the vaccine was discovered, there was a lot of, you know, if I produce a vaccine, it has to be domestic. It has to, we have, we would hold on to whatever we produce locally, to the extent that at some point, even the US and Europe, we are supposed to be very, very formidable trading partners, well on each other's neck with respect to vaccine wars, so to speak, right? And today, Greg, if I ask you, have you ever heard any government talk about whether they want to localise their supply chains of COVID vaccines?

No one really talks about that anymore, right? So I think that is, I call it the evolution of uncertainty or the evolution of scarcity. For every industry, at the early stage of it, right, there is always that, if you take even oil, when oil, especially during the Arab Embargo, when oil became the big issue, now you look down and people care, but people don't care.

So I think we are going to enter the uncertain times, obviously, as it's very early stage, the perception that there's not enough for everyone, but then down the line, in the next five years, in the next 10 years, I think we're going to revert to the mean, but it will get really worse before it gets better, depending on what happens to the US in November.

[Greg Matlock] (1:07:11 - 1:07:23)
Yeah, I think, yeah, and that last comment's a very, yeah, no one knows at this point, right? But yeah, absolutely agree with all the comments. Matthew, over to you, and then we'll wrap up with Belinda.

[Matthew Zolnowski] (1:07:25 - 1:10:31)
Yeah, so on the one hand, I want to give industry, you know, some pretty significant credit here, and that is, you know, industry has always considered and evaluated political risk, which again, geopolitics is fundamentally a form of political risk. It may have, you know, used different terms at one point in time, called jurisdictional risk, for example, instead, in the same way that ESG as a term, as a, you know, subject of corporate social responsibility has gone through an evolution in terminology, but the requirement has fundamentally always been there. However, what I'll say is, why is it different this time?

Why does this time feel like it is more unstable or more unpredictable than before? And to be honest, and again, this is where my history nerd will come out, so bear with me here, but there's been a fundamental change in the structure of the international system. From 1945 to 1989, the international system was, for the most part, characterized by two very, very large blocs, not just political blocs, but also military alliances and also two large economic blocs led by the Soviet Union and the United States.

1989 occurs, the wall comes down, and now the Soviet Union is no more, and we're left with this unipolar moment where the United States is effectively the preeminent power in the international system. Now, back when I was in government, I had a good friend at the State Department, and they once told me that whenever they would go into a negotiation, they were very happy that they always had two great epaulets on their shoulders. One said, world's greatest economy, and the other said, world's greatest military, and that gave them a lot of advantages.

However, as we look forward to, for example, you know, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the many-year-long counterinsurgency activities in both those countries, certainly the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, both of those epaulets have lost a little bit of their luster. And so if we fast forward to the present, we're no longer in a unipolar moment. Really, we are shifting to, at minimum, economically a multi-polar system, but arguably even from a security standpoint as well.

And again, the key poles in that environment are the United States, China, the European Union, and Russia, frankly. And frankly, global companies have built their business practices on a much simpler international system. And so the shift to multi-polarity means that there's going to be a lot more flat surfaces that are going to be opening up for miscommunication, misunderstanding, and just frankly accidents.

And it's just simply going to take time for industry to adjust from what was to what is now the new reality and what is likely to be that reality for the next several decades to come.

[Belinda Labatte] (1:10:35 - 1:12:35)
I'd say, I think you're, you know, the losing of luster in terms of what some of the strong economies are witnessing today. I think there's issues around leadership and governance at very high levels and lack of trust there. So that vacuum is being filled with a lot of voices of people in their communities.

Anybody can become a leader and a voice to express their feelings about major geopolitical issues because that's what social media allows you to do. So I think it's very challenging to operate in an environment where you are aligning all of those pieces into a strategy as a business. And it's going to be equally challenging for governments to do so for the same reasons.

There's a lot of different voices that are coming out and a lot of different pressures from different directions. But I think that's what disruption is. And I think the only way out of that is through it.

And, you know, the people on this panel have put forward some really interesting ideas, I think, about what we can do to align all the pieces. So I think it's going to be maybe difficult in the near term, but by coming up with new creative solutions to the hand that we are being dealt today is going to be important. And so I would say people should be making choices as to where they develop and how they develop and moving through it, but not hesitating because we've got the right resources, we've got the right tools to build our own energy supply chain and energy security in North America.

So it's just the will of the people that needs to come forward to keep making choices, moving us in the direction of energy security and energy interdependence.

[Greg Matlock] (1:12:36 - 1:12:53)
And thank you for an exciting and insightful panel and discussion on what really is a critical topic, not to use critical too much, but critical minerals is such a critical topic. And thank you to everybody who listened to our topic and to our presenters. Thanks for joining us.

[Theo Yameogo] (1:12:54 - 1:13:34)
Well, Kaki, that was a great panel. And I think that what we heard from panelists is that balancing the global supply and demand for critical mineral is key to actually unearth the opportunities, but also address the challenges. I actually think, Kaki, that given these dynamics, I want to hear what you think about how stakeholders can effectively navigate the current economic regulatory challenges, because in your world, you see a lot of discussion with board members around these kind of topics.

So how do you see that navigation going?

[Kaki Giauque] (1:13:35 - 1:14:00)
Yeah, you're spot on, Theo. And one way is by pushing for more transparent and consistent regulations. It's about building strong public-private partnerships.

They're also going to be key to securing investment and driving innovation. Additionally, adopting creative funding solutions and enhancing project visibility can help overcome current capital constraints and tap into new opportunities.

[Theo Yameogo] (1:14:00 - 1:14:30)
Thanks, Kaki. I'm just going to confess to this one, because this is really my favorite panel coming up. You know, culture and workforce are actually underpinning how we succeed.

There's no mining and metals, or metal mining, depending on how you look at it, without a stronger workforce with a unique culture. So I look forward to hearing from this upcoming panel, moderated by Karen Hutchinson, who is Canada's strategic alignment leader.