During a hearing called on Thursday by the industry and technology committee, Mr. Champagne was asked on multiple occasions when he became aware of Zijin’s plans to buy Neo Lithium, but he would not answer. Instead he repeatedly insisted the deal was subject to a rigorous security review.
“The law states they have 45 days after announcement to start a [formal security] review, if they believe there is a specific concern,” Carlos Vicens, chief financial officer of Neo Lithium, wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail this month. “The timeline passed in early December, and no review was done.”
The Neo Lithium deal was approved after updated ICA guidelines last year, at the behest of Mr. Champagne, that mandated all deals involving state-owned firms acquiring Canadian companies, as well as those involving critical minerals assets, be subject to “enhanced scrutiny.” Lithium is widely used in electric cars and energy storage, and is one of several battery minerals that is key to the transition to a low-carbon economy. At the moment, Canada has no lithium mines, no lithium processing plants, and no lithium ion battery plants. The industry is dominated by China, which is among the biggest miners of the element, and commands a 60-per-cent global share of lithium refining.
The Industry Minister said that since Neo Lithium’s project is located in Argentina, any future lithium production is unlikely to make it into the Canadian supply chain. He also maintained that the type of lithium that Neo is planning to produce, called carbonate, is not as highly valued to the North American supply chain as hydroxide, because batteries that use carbonate don’t last as long.
Who cares? A company wishes to but another... that's all this is.
Are you trying to distract us from of the story of your right-winged people visiting Parliament Hill? Who the hell care who was mum on this story?
They're all mum on every topic as they continue to sell out Canada for personal gain.
Follow the timeline. Amazing what opposition parties can uncover. Who knew what and when and what did they do about it. That is the 1 rule of opposition politics
The liberal party getting Chinese kickbacks no doubt..
BoycottChina
I'd be overly surprised if he knew when his birthday was.
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