True Patriot Love - Canada’s Lithium Reality Check ft. Stan Sudol

00:00:00.000 today on true patriot love i'm lucky enough to have stan pseudo welcome stan how you do

00:00:09.420 we are going to talk about resources and stan one of the things that came to my attention

00:00:14.820 recently i was in a group of people having dinner and we started talking about evs and the

00:00:21.560 announcement about evs we all heard about the chinese evs coming to canada the 49 000 and we

00:00:28.420 got into a long debate about Stellantis and Volkswagen and the subsidies that actually the

00:00:35.540 government had given to get these plants to come to Ontario, both federally and provincially. And

00:00:41.140 it was a long discussion, went round and round. And at the end of it, someone said to me, well,

00:00:46.360 you know, we don't produce a lot of lithium. And I said, well, what do you mean we don't produce a

00:00:50.980 lot of lithium? So, you know, it got on to another topic. We started talking about the Leafs and

00:00:55.640 their dismal end of the season and everything else and you know i went home and and i actually

00:01:00.720 jumped on my computer the next morning i was just having breakfast and i pulled it up

00:01:04.980 and you know what i i was shocked i was absolutely astounded that two percent 2.6 percent of the

00:01:13.400 world's production of lithium only comes from canada okay and i was like okay i didn't know

00:01:18.960 that that's a new stat because quite frankly i thought okay we doubled down on ev we got you

00:01:24.500 know, our carbon footprint initiative, you know, to get rid of carbon that we were world

00:01:33.600 leader in. All these things we were doing, we must have thought through the resources

00:01:38.400 we needed to get batteries into play at such a large scale. And what I found out is we

00:01:44.460 really hadn't. And so I was shocked. I actually was like, okay, I guess we are not the world

00:01:52.020 leader in lithium but we want to basically go out front and and get into the ev game in a big way so

00:01:59.540 help me a little bit because i i then dug in and i started to learn a little bit of lithium i'm

00:02:05.220 probably a junior lithium uh expert now and i know you have a lot more knowledge than i do and and

00:02:12.900 help me kind of in canada where are we on the lithium front where are we producing it where

00:02:19.860 are we mining it and how do we refine it okay that's a lot to unpack a lot to unpack so one

00:02:27.540 by one where is it okay um there's two there there's there's two basic right now in the world

00:02:35.140 that we get our lithium from two different sources hard rock spodumene is one of the sources uh it's

00:02:41.700 basically open pit mining uh australia is the largest lithium producer in the world and all

00:02:47.300 their lithium is hard rock spodumene mining and you're basically digging out of the ground

00:02:54.020 you're crushing it up to a certain uh concentrating it to a certain level around six percent and then

00:02:59.780 you ship that material to a refinery where it becomes either lithium hydroxide or lithium

00:03:05.540 carbonate uh so and and the potential for more lithium production uh in canada would be hard

00:03:15.060 rock spodumy okay okay the other uh source of lithium is basically from what they call the

00:03:20.180 lithium triangle which is argentina chile and bolivia and chile is the number two i think number

00:03:26.820 two producer of lithium in the world and that is they basically pump up these these fairly shallow

00:03:33.700 lithium reservoirs they pump it up they basically have these huge evaporation ponds that you see

00:03:42.340 many people see pictures of it they're nice aquamarine are really pretty colors and uh

00:03:47.300 and they let and then they it slowly evaporates so it takes a couple of months before they can

00:03:52.500 actually uh take that lithium and then put it through the processing um what where there's two

00:04:00.580 other potential sources uh and and one of them is uh direct lithium extraction so what they're doing

00:04:08.580 is they're going um to these lithium brines and they're hoping to filter the product uh the the

00:04:18.180 material the watery material filter it through membranes or some other mechanism uh to separate

00:04:26.100 the the contaminants from the pure lithium and the the the purpose is a you can do it quicker

00:04:34.660 b it's a smaller environmental footprint but it's basically um in the preliminary stages

00:04:43.780 you know there's a lot of expertise that's looking at it and it may work or it may not but as of

00:04:51.860 today um april 2026 none of our um lithium is coming from direct lithium extraction now there's

00:05:01.060 huge you may have read recently in the canadian media uh there's a huge uh conversation about

00:05:09.940 lithium oil and gas lithium brides in alberta yeah and that there's the figures were like trillion

00:05:18.020 dollars worth of potential lithium and again everyone you know you read the headline you go

00:05:22.980 oh my god we we've got it made in the shade but again it's preliminary well and it's interesting

00:05:29.780 because when i'm doing my research you know to be the junior expert i get on this albert i just we

00:05:34.660 just been to calgary so i get on this and and i'd heard about this in my trip to calgary so it'd be

00:05:39.700 in one of the dinners i was having someone said oh we're gonna we're gonna dominate the lithium

00:05:43.620 market i said oh well that's really how much are you doing we're not doing anything right now but

00:05:47.780 quite frankly we have 82.5 million tons i'm like well i think we're only doing like 4 400 tons

00:05:56.740 right now in the whole country so you're telling me somewhere in the country we have 82 82 million

00:06:02.580 tons of lithium but the lithium we actually do produce is from hard rock spodumene lithium

00:06:08.820 deposits exactly yeah and this is this is the new sort of alberta gas type the replacement for

00:06:15.620 oil and gas yeah exactly allegedly allegedly okay so so that you know and you're right they

00:06:21.620 they were saying the value was one trillion dollars and all this so that's kind of what i

00:06:26.020 read when i got into it so really that's um and it's interesting you say that because when i was

00:06:31.940 fishing around and reading about it and trying to get up to speed i did see kind of their r d center

00:06:38.020 which was this big pre-sprung pant in the middle of alberta in a field i saw that so it is an

00:06:44.580 experiment right now it's it's it's in the kind of uh hey may happen may not speed exactly and

00:06:51.300 and there's two problems right like i i don't want to sound dr doom okay uh because you know

00:06:58.340 initially uh new innovation is is always challenging uh and it may be the start of

00:07:03.700 something down the line but i don't think the timelines that they talk about are necessarily

00:07:09.540 is accurate or engraved in stone as they would like or like to propose but the other problem

00:07:15.540 with the oil and gas lithium brines are that they're a little deeper than what you have in

00:07:23.220 Chile. They're very hot and acidic. So you've got some problems. And the grades are roughly

00:07:31.740 10 times lower than what you're getting in the lithium, averaging 10 times lower than what

00:07:38.940 you're getting in the lithium triangle with their brines right so you got to pump through a lot more

00:07:45.660 water uh you got to deal with the acidic conditions you got to try to deal with with um uh taking out

00:07:53.440 any contaminants it there's a lot of technical challenges and then there's what do you do how

00:08:00.020 do you deal with uh the um contaminants um tailings are you going to put that back underground it may

00:08:08.320 you know it may all work right but again the cost so then you always have to balance all of these

00:08:14.540 issues especially with new technology with how much it costs to just do a a hard rock spodumene

00:08:21.580 lithium deposit right so you know and as you're saying that i'm sort of it's interesting because

00:08:28.540 then now a bunch of stuff is jumping into my head i'm thinking okay weren't we kind of on this ev

00:08:34.020 mission for 2030 well 2030 then it got pushed off to 2035 and i'm thinking to myself okay

00:08:41.240 if we didn't necessarily have the lithium resources we were trying to get on this mission

00:08:48.700 to get the evs at such a fast pace which now we've kind of backed off right so probably wasn't

00:08:54.800 ever a really realistic target because quite frankly we didn't even have the resource we

00:09:00.080 weren't producing enough of the resorts to get to the quantity we needed and we would have had to

00:09:04.840 gone to as you mentioned australia or uh china to get it bring it back there seems to be there

00:09:12.500 always seems to be an article somewhere about a shortage in lithium around the world somewhere

00:09:18.200 so we would have had to deal with shortages and whatever then we got to get it back

00:09:22.200 it really didn't ever seem plausible so now when i'm looking at it i'm thinking okay so we backed

00:09:28.400 off our targets is it plausible like is it plausible for us to become self-sustaining in

00:09:35.280 the lithium market to serve all these cars to serve all these phones to serve like are we ever

00:09:43.220 going to australia did it obviously but they had kind of the climate and they had the ability to

00:09:51.660 get there with the resources they had okay the short answer is yes okay but the long answer is

00:09:57.900 First, what ended up happening was this frenzy of EVs, and we were all in that EV bandwagon.

00:10:05.140 It was kind of almost in the middle of COVID.

00:10:07.460 I think we didn't have enough to do, so we just all went crazy and paid attention.

00:10:12.400 The price of lithium spiked because of all these potential demand.

00:10:19.820 Around $2.22, $2.23, it reached its peak, and then it collapsed.

00:10:26.580 almost 90 percent. So all of a sudden you have the the price of lithium collapsing because China 0.99

00:10:33.380 started producing a lot more. The market was flooded and the world market was flooded with

00:10:38.600 with lithium. We weren't building enough EVs and then all of a sudden also with the price collapse

00:10:44.860 then it makes it harder for junior lithium explorers to actually raise the funds to actually

00:10:49.320 go do their exploration. And now what's happening is we're seeing an uptick. And then all of a

00:10:59.140 sudden now, some analysts are saying, well, there's going to be a bit of a surplus this year.

00:11:03.400 Other people are saying, well, but the ultimate demand moving forward to 2030, which is only four

00:11:09.580 years away, is really optimistic. So we're going to be needing a lot more lithium. So now that's

00:11:17.040 of uh in the interim uh the junior exploration lithium hard rock junior exploration uh uh

00:11:24.400 explorers were we're doing what they're doing they're they're they're doing uh drilling they're

00:11:29.120 they're they're they're finding bigger lithium deposits uh and and what possibly could be a

00:11:36.080 reason uh because mo a lot of our are most of the press is english language so but a major uh

00:11:45.280 elephant mother load of lithium deposits are in the James Bay region of Quebec. So you might not

00:11:51.600 have as many people paying attention to what they're doing in Quebec. And even you're seeing

00:11:59.520 a lot of Australians who have experience looking for hard rock, lithium spodumene deposits in

00:12:07.600 in Australia, going across the Great Pond, the Pacific,

00:12:12.280 and are sprinkled throughout the James Bay region of Quebec

00:12:16.620 because they're realizing that the humongous,

00:12:20.260 humongous potential with finding the pagmatites

00:12:25.000 and the spodumene pagmatites.

00:12:26.420 And this could be, at least geopolitically,

00:12:30.960 one of the most secure and economic sources

00:12:34.220 of lithium moving forward.

00:12:37.220 It's interesting, you know, every time we get together, you bring up Quebec and, you know, last time we were together, we went across and we just did a show on all the resources across Canada by region.

00:12:47.640 And it was good for me because, quite frankly, it got my mind in the resource sector.

00:12:52.300 It got me thinking again since, you know, I came back to Canada years ago and, you know, I forgot a lot about where all the resources were.

00:12:59.600 so you know we did the show i got up to speed but quebec had a ton of you know whether it's steel

00:13:06.220 aluminum all the things you were filling me in on uh and i i was uh you know reminded now we're

00:13:13.140 talking about you know possible separation of the province again is back on the table you know and

00:13:19.580 every time you i have a show with you i leave and think oh my goodness like i hope quebec isn't

00:13:24.400 serious about separation because we get so much of our resources from quebec but we don't talk

00:13:29.560 about it that much like it's one of those things that you're right we it's kind of one of those

00:13:33.940 james bay quebec we don't really talk about a lot if you and i told me where it was and that

00:13:39.360 lithium was happening there and it does it get refined there too um well right now no okay but

00:13:45.460 rio tinto which is the third largest miner in the world has two lithium deposits major lithium

00:13:51.820 deposits right um and they have a they bought uh sort of a bankrupt lithium uh processing facility

00:14:00.940 uh from namasco this was uh going to be the great hope for quebec lithium uh but they kind of peaked

00:14:08.220 too early uh in the late teens uh 2017 2018 finances this that the upshot is um uh it sort

00:14:18.140 sort of was on care and maintenance uh Rio Tinto came in uh they are part they are part owner with

00:14:25.080 the Quebec government right good decision by the Quebec government uh with the this proposed

00:14:31.000 lithium refinery which is roughly 70 percent complete and part owner with one of the open pit

00:14:37.220 uh lithium mines in the James Bay area uh but Rio Tinto has also uh which is a well bushy

00:14:44.260 deposit. But Rio Tinto has its own galaxy deposit that it owns 100%. So there's roughly maybe 50,

00:14:53.960 60 million tons in the ground. So Rio Tinto has to decide which one they want to start producing

00:15:00.860 first from. And now they just said recently in the Globe and Mail that they're just slowing it

00:15:06.100 down a bit with some issues probably came up. But they expect the refinery to be in production by

00:15:13.980 2028 so that will be the second lithium refinery uh in north america or at least canada u.s right

00:15:23.980 elon musk and texas uh had just opened in january the first lithium refinery in the united states

00:15:32.320 or in united states canada right and i know they're they're doing some stuff that's very

00:15:37.280 experimental also in nevada yes so that's the so as i said at the beginning you've got either

00:15:43.260 spodumene hard rock mines that produce lithium and the brines well there's another type of

00:15:53.900 lithium deposit called claystone deposits right now they tend to be lower grade than the spodumene

00:16:01.020 deposits but massive and this is there's a there's a deposit called thacker pass

00:16:07.500 um so it's uh if if they can feasibly get this processed and get it working it will be

00:16:15.180 a hundred years or more of lithium production but that's the issue again there has not been

00:16:21.980 a economical commercial grade lithium claystone deposit developed anywhere in the world

00:16:29.980 so again it's cutting edge their pilot plant everything seems to work on paper

00:16:35.020 okay yeah and the small pilot plant seems to be operating the american government is invested in

00:16:41.700 this company gm is invested in this company i saw that so but i get worried because like i said to

00:16:49.460 you previously um inco vale purdue built this huge nickel ladderite project in new caledonia

00:16:58.440 Billions of dollars, pilot plant, everything on paper said it was going to work great.

00:17:04.000 And after a billion dollars, still glitches, still problems.

00:17:08.220 They're supposed to produce 60 million tons of nickel, never did.

00:17:11.480 Then they tried putting in some more money to rectify all these glitches.

00:17:15.960 Again, now they finally sold it because it became this huge white elephant or money pit.

00:17:21.600 And now it's a smaller organization, a big company has it, and they're producing some material from it.

00:17:29.840 So I'm not an engineer.

00:17:33.800 All I know is every time I talk to someone who says when you build with new technology, commercial scale plant that will cost billions of dollars,

00:17:43.880 do not bet the the house on it because there are a lot of times there's there's glitches

00:17:51.280 uh and your production levels might be a lot lower than you expect well they are in nevada

00:17:56.400 stand so maybe they are betting the house on it well yeah well security supply is an issue but

00:18:02.560 sometimes it gets me annoyed with especially with trump and the politics we are is

00:18:09.560 as much as Carney is trying to shift us over to the Chinese, and as some columnist said today in

00:18:18.420 the National Post, you're trading one hegemon for another, okay? But you know what? The Americans do

00:18:25.400 not use slave labor. The Americans don't do all the nasty stuff that the Chinese do. And as Mulroney 1.00

00:18:32.820 said a long time ago, and it still rings in my ear, you dance with the partner that brung you.

00:18:38.540 the high standard of living that we have in this country is because we're next door

00:18:42.860 to one of the richest societies in the history of mankind. I know Trump with his 51st state or

00:18:49.720 53rd state or whatever rattles a lot of Canadians. I know a lot of Canadians are upset because he

00:18:55.940 does what he does, but he's only there for X amount of time. You're not going to destroy

00:19:02.300 decades if not a century of friendship and close economic ties because of one president oh yeah

00:19:09.660 so so it's it's so anyways so back to we for all you know i did years ago i did a top 10 mining

00:19:18.480 men in canadian history and four of them were americans because the for mining development

00:19:23.400 it's an invisible border you have brain power and financing a lot of our minds in canada could not

00:19:29.740 been developed with american capital and expertise yes so we are economically linked at the hip and

00:19:39.580 they shouldn't look at us as a foreign country in the sense of for uh resource wealth interesting

00:19:45.420 and you know the chinese i want to go back to that for a minute because a lot of the refining

00:19:49.660 of lithium was shipped to china it was actually refined and then came back is that the yeah so

00:19:55.500 for years that that's the cycle that we were in and it it continues i think we're starting to

00:20:00.540 change that as you mentioned is some refining uh coming here uh rio tinto being a uh publicly

00:20:08.380 traded company i think in the uk and australia so it has its roots there um but you know again

00:20:14.460 i love that quebec is actually partnering with them to actually make that happen and i you know

00:20:19.180 keeping control of some of your resources or keeping your your finger in it so you quite

00:20:23.980 flank you can make it profitable for your province why does quebec you know in your opinion because

00:20:29.020 you do you deal with a lot of people quebec seems to be on the leading edge of mining in canada just

00:20:34.780 because more innovative the thought process the government implementation is there anything that

00:20:41.100 like because every time we talk we're bringing up quebec and how they're kind of leaping head or just

00:20:46.060 geographically they're lucky enough to uh located themselves in a region that that is so prosperous

00:20:52.460 with respect to resources like or they are they more aggressive because ontario seems to struggle

00:20:58.060 at times with the mining process we're a little slower i guess more red tape um well there's a

00:21:04.700 number of things but ontario basically is your manufacturing hub of canada i mean when you look

00:21:09.500 historically the the manufacturing from oshawa to windsor uh and everything in between uh and it's

00:21:16.220 not just the auto but the auto sector is the number one uh economic driver the ontario economy

00:21:22.860 and then for the country it's number two only eclipsed by oil and gas so so ontario's always

00:21:29.020 had more focused on the manufacturing side i mean growing up in sudbury and having relatives in

00:21:34.220 london and and we'd take the drive and you'd have these horrible roads uh going down to parry sound

00:21:40.300 and the minute you pass barry and the highways are smooth and it's like this is ontario paying

00:21:45.020 attention to the manufacturing might of the south uh versus uh the the hewers of wood and drawers of

00:21:52.060 water the miners in north we just get dismissed okay but now that's changed okay but uh but the

00:21:58.700 roads are still pretty bad but uh do you hear that premier ford you know we need to twin uh all the

00:22:04.860 way across northern ontario uh but um so quebec didn't have as much manufacturing at least so they

00:22:13.500 had a deal but they did have a lot of electricity and power production so that was one of the

00:22:17.980 draws of bringing in the cluster of uh aluminum smelters and refineries in the saguenay because

00:22:24.620 they gave them long-term contracts with very very inexpensive electricity and so that drew

00:22:31.660 alcan alcoa and and a few other uh companies in there and you've got this cluster of aluminum

00:22:38.140 expertise um then you have and they've always paid attention more so to the resources because

00:22:45.180 that was part of what was driving their economy and and then of course the james bay lowlands

00:22:50.060 during the 1970s the damming of all these fast uh these rivers that go into james bay a huge

00:22:58.860 bonus for for quebec uh in hydro quebec because you end up um the expertise to actually construct

00:23:07.740 these dams the power it generates the revenue they get from power sales to new york and the

00:23:14.540 american northeast uh and and lower power rates always made it a little bit easier for mineral

00:23:21.900 development and then also but also the the old rouen or naranda and valdor camps um back in the

00:23:30.540 1920s it was copper right and so they built a copper smelter in rouen and then in the in the

00:23:37.420 beginning of the great depression in 1930-31 they built this massive copper refinery in montreal

00:23:44.300 what a gift think about that the whole country is going into a depression and there's uh naranda

00:23:51.020 building a massive copper refinery in montreal which at that time employed a heck of a lot more

00:23:57.900 people than they do today so so they understood the power and and the uh resource potential of

00:24:04.540 building uh um from from the minerals that were uh in the land and also what was a spinoff from

00:24:12.220 that refinery was a lot of copper wire and and other copper products that they built at the time

00:24:17.900 right so now you're just seeing that a little now with lithium because lithium being the new oil of

00:24:22.460 the of the uh the future and the electrification of everything um once they started looking at

00:24:29.100 the geology uh in the james bay region they just went oh my god look at these massive uh

00:24:36.620 spodumene pegmatite deposits that have lithium in them right uh so again the the quebec government

00:24:44.540 sort of lost saw that as a real big potential and so this is when the masca the forerunner of the

00:24:51.660 refinery that uh rio tinto picked up um was looking for funding then the uh the investment

00:24:57.900 arm of the quebec government went into because it's it's it's a good investment for the people

00:25:01.980 of quebec long term oh yeah you know it's interesting so uh we've been doing a lot of

00:25:06.540 shows of course on pipelines and oil and gas and um doing some comparisons between canada and norway

00:25:13.100 which is looking at equinor and sort of the division in 73 when they went one way and we

00:25:18.700 went another way yes and how it's benefited them for their you know their heritage fund and now

00:25:23.740 they've grown to a trillion dollars and uh where we went the other way we went to petro canada and

00:25:28.700 then we sold it off right yeah yeah so you know we've been looking at different things on that

00:25:33.500 front um you know and i'm i'm kind of listening to this lithium story and i'm thinking to myself okay

00:25:39.580 i get it it sounds like it's coming right so it sounds like you know yes we're 2.6

00:25:45.340 yes we're going to grow yes there are uh deposits there's the ability to get into refinement but

00:25:51.980 but it's going to take a while.

00:25:53.240 Yes.

00:25:53.640 So the vision and the timeline that we originally were talking about

00:25:57.420 was really never feasible from respect to an EV

00:26:01.040 and whether even the rollout of charging stations

00:26:03.940 and all that good stuff across the country,

00:26:06.660 I don't think we ever thought that was going to happen.

00:26:09.040 And now looking at lithium itself,

00:26:11.420 it's not going to happen on that timeline.

00:26:14.940 So the oil and gas, we were talking about it before,

00:26:17.620 we still have to deal with oil, and quite frankly,

00:26:20.000 oil is in every part of what we do yes and so you know when we were talking about them kind of

00:26:25.360 which was interesting at one point we're having this conversation like they were uh exclusive

00:26:30.740 they were doing one without the other you know we're going to get rid of this and get this

00:26:35.160 it really isn't going to happen that way and i think you know you made a good point before i

00:26:40.140 think as as more people got into a greener uh emission-free uh discussion they forgot that they

00:26:47.860 got into it's you know it just sounded like you know we were going to shift off to evs it was

00:26:52.380 going to be self-supportive it was going to be easy it's not right so it's going to take time

00:26:57.280 i think we'll get there but it's going to take the time to develop the lithium industry and that

00:27:01.300 is something that i think we didn't talk about enough i think we were having this discussion

00:27:06.340 and we weren't breaking down the components so we were saying okay let's do evs great okay we can

00:27:12.660 we can build cars right but then you know where do we get the lithium where does the lithium get

00:27:18.580 refined where does it you know lithium is very well you know what i'm learning as i get more

00:27:23.300 into lithium it's a it's final production it's very volatile so it's not as easy once you once

00:27:30.260 you get it out of the ground once you refine it once you get it into play actually uh the components

00:27:35.380 and putting it into phones or batteries or whatever there's a lot of challenges that i

00:27:39.780 didn't realize when i when i started reading about it due to heat and and the offsets that come from

00:27:45.060 it oh yeah so the specs have to be spot on you can't you can't just you know some junior who

00:27:51.300 may have you know 10 million tons of lithium in the ground and then it's just sending out an email

00:27:56.820 saying uh a news release saying oh yes and we intend to build a lithium uh refinery not going

00:28:03.300 to happen that first australia has australia was in that scenario where they were a huge amount of

00:28:11.780 lithium production uh massive uh mines uh so you have the lithium then you concentrated it but they

00:28:19.220 were shipping all their lithium to china so they really pushed and built two lithium refineries

00:28:27.140 one of them is shut down because there's technical challenges even for australian

00:28:36.900 who's so far ahead and they're even having challenges yes i read that so when you have

00:28:41.620 some junior with a small deposit in northwestern ontario uh saying well i'm going to build a

00:28:47.620 I need money to build a lithium refinery.

00:28:52.520 Yeah, you know what?

00:28:54.360 The entry, many people in lithium,

00:28:57.240 especially in the Quebec side of the lithium,

00:28:59.880 hard rock lithium world basically says

00:29:02.460 the basic entry point is about 50 million tons.

00:29:07.300 And then it goes up from there.

00:29:08.620 So if you don't even have 20 million tons

00:29:11.640 or 15 million tons, you're a little bit of a minnow.

00:29:15.460 Go back, do some more drilling.

00:29:17.620 and come back when when when when you see when we see 50 million tons and then we can talk with

00:29:22.820 the big boys right speak yeah yeah and we're you know that's the challenge we're such a small

00:29:28.180 provider such a small uh producer right now yes right now right now the quantitative word yeah

00:29:34.260 and so we're we're say we get uh we double our production by 28. that would be that would be a

00:29:43.620 leap okay i think in my mind quite frankly if we go from four to eight it all depends because i

00:29:50.260 don't know what the timelines are going to be because remember even last year it was a horrible

00:29:55.540 forest fire season in quebec right in northern quebec and and and you know what we don't even

00:30:01.540 think about it down here i mean we do a complaint that we're getting a little bit of a smoke or

00:30:05.940 whatever in toronto from these forest fires in northern ontario or quebec but the junior

00:30:10.900 exploration was really slowed down especially in quebec because of and a lot of the um the lithium

00:30:18.260 junior exploration lithium guys had to slow down or stop because of these uh forest fires so once

00:30:24.100 and and like i say you know we're starting to see an uptick people are starting to realize okay

00:30:30.900 the glut is disappearing and we really do need a supply of lithium and we do need it

00:30:37.780 with, say what you will about President Trump. He has made the issue of mineral security supply

00:30:49.400 one of the number one issues on his agenda. Like I said the last time, when was the last time we

00:30:56.840 actually had a U.S. president going on about mineral security ever? And it is a priority.

00:31:02.860 So that is helping. And of course, the Quebec government understands the importance of it. And I suspect we're going to see a lot of interesting and positive news out of Quebec's James Bay lithium exploration sector.

00:31:19.420 well it's interesting a couple things we just did when you're bringing up the fire uh the wildfires

00:31:24.660 we just did a show yesterday um which was very interesting about people's inability to get

00:31:29.840 insurance now after the wildfires oh wow yeah it's very interesting if you get to watch it's

00:31:36.580 in so because insurance companies are now struggling and their policies are removing

00:31:40.360 uh removing it so there's lots of issues for companies and uh homes yeah in the region so

00:31:47.180 to think about in you know last night you know we did another show on iran and it was uh you know

00:31:53.740 after everything going on and i won't get into the whole show but you know now you know with the the

00:31:59.340 ceasefire or whatever where do we call this thing we're doing now but with the two-week ceasefire

00:32:03.900 and if this thing gets resolved and the peace plan comes about the u.s you know leaves iran takes

00:32:10.220 possession of the strait again and starts to control it and charges a fee for passage and

00:32:15.420 everything else it does have long-term effects on our resource sector here in canada absolutely so

00:32:22.700 lithium then becomes a really key element because now it kind of subdivides the world and the

00:32:30.300 resource sectors and the sharing of resources changes the whole dynamic on how we are going

00:32:35.420 to do business so as americans and canadians you know we look at how the world order has

00:32:42.300 been divided lithium is a key and so quite frankly this whole lithium discussion that

00:32:48.620 we kind of glazed over when we got into the world we kind of like okay we're going to do this but

00:32:53.420 we're going to buy it from other people we're going to bring it in and we're going to put it

00:32:56.380 into our cars here it's your point about you know and glad you took us through about ontario being

00:33:00.940 the manufacturing hub yeah we were kind of like thinking that we were thinking of it only as

00:33:05.180 manufacturers we weren't thinking of it as miners and processors and refiners and now we're thinking

00:33:11.180 of it that way and quite frankly i think the importance of it will become even more it'll

00:33:16.380 become even more power mount given the world order is changing and how resources are going to be

00:33:21.180 shared um absolutely just just to back to the strait of harmuz uh a lot of people are were

00:33:28.700 really shocked and surprised at uh the hold up of not only oil and gas but a material for fertilizer

00:33:37.820 that got blocked off because of the Straits, and aluminum. And because a lot of the Gulf states have

00:33:44.460 massive aluminum refineries because of the cheap power, natural gas. And of course, we have this

00:33:52.380 whole issue with Donald Trump and the tariffs on the aluminum industry in Quebec. So right away,

00:33:58.300 it just ricochets back to, don't bite the hand that feeds you. The aluminum industry has been

00:34:05.580 integrated with the American economy for almost 100 years. And the supply lines are quite

00:34:18.060 long-term. And maybe for the Americans, they could look at this and basically say, look,

00:34:27.500 it's not doing us any good by beating up the aluminum industry in Quebec when a lot of aluminum

00:34:34.060 that we were maybe expecting from the uh the gulf is not available yeah well it's interesting you

00:34:39.740 bring up fertilizer you know i'm just uh reading the other day you know india is already challenged

00:34:45.660 you know with uh potential famine um because of the delay uh for fertilizers coming across

00:34:52.940 because of the straight you know these ricochets of things that happen unintended consequences

00:34:57.900 unintended consequences and the funny thing you know it's not sometimes intended consequences

00:35:03.100 that aren't well thought out and this lithium thing to me it just speaks to that quite frankly

00:35:08.460 we we go in a direction we don't fully think out of all the consequences of what could happen

00:35:14.780 this straight you know this straight i did a show on it the other day honestly the fact that we

00:35:19.820 could all be held in this position for something that is 20 nautical miles wide at two miles of

00:35:27.500 passage at 80 meters deep for these uh tankers and we're in this position because of it changing the

00:35:35.820 dynamics of our whole world is bizarre it's bizarre that no one risk managed that and thought through

00:35:42.140 it and said okay and but i don't think we did i don't honestly i think i think in 1973 you know

00:35:48.300 during the young kipper war and the embargoes yes i think we got into it i don't i think after that

00:35:53.580 went away we all just got happy again you know it's it's like when you you know you go and you

00:35:57.740 get injured or something happens once you're better you forget that that ever happened again

00:36:01.900 and you just start walking and running and having fun again you don't think about what happened in

00:36:06.140 the past you put it out of your mind i think we we we did that in a lot of ways uh when we started

00:36:12.540 thinking of this ev sector we started thinking okay let's get into evs we stopped thinking about

00:36:17.740 all the potential risks that were in there and things that could happen now it's forefront you

00:36:22.700 You know, we're we're seeing the oil impacts, you know, today down 15 more dollars from last night right away, even on a two week, you know, you know, ceasefire.

00:36:38.200 But you see, we had 10 years of Trudeau and Gerald Butts and Gebo and all the green fanatics in the liberal government that were just singing the song about, basically, we're going to enter the EV age, we don't need oil and gas, forgot the issue that natural gas produces enormous amounts of material that are absolutely critical for chemical fertilizer production.

00:37:08.200 If we don't have natural gas, you don't have chemical fertilizers,

00:37:14.220 then perhaps almost one quarter of the population of the globe

00:37:19.060 starves to death because the crop yields will plunge.

00:37:22.760 So we were sort of lulled into it.

00:37:24.940 And those 10 years are 10 lost years.

00:37:28.180 And we should have been, A, producing liquid natural gas plants on the West Coast.

00:37:33.620 But there were also some proposals for the East Coast,

00:37:36.500 which Trudeau bravely said there was no business case.

00:37:40.680 And had we done that, we would have been,

00:37:43.460 our budgets might have been even balanced 0.99

00:37:45.400 if they weren't in their little fanatical green bubble. 0.94

00:37:50.400 And so we would have been a great ally to Germany

00:37:53.380 and Western Europe supplying natural gas from New Brunswick

00:37:58.160 because there were some projects there,

00:37:59.800 as well as Japan and Taiwan and South Korea

00:38:04.380 who would have desperately loved more natural gas from canada oh yeah yeah no and and we talk about

00:38:09.980 it all the time and you know again it's you know it's the strategy of evs i'm i'm not opposed to

00:38:17.020 i don't you know it's inevitable it happens it's happening across the world cars are changing you

00:38:22.220 know whether they're self-driving whether they're uh powered by electricity the issue becomes in

00:38:27.980 parallel how you do it and that's i think where we always we tend to fall short because we don't

00:38:32.940 think uh the issue's through and this lithium issue to me is is just quite frankly one of the

00:38:39.740 many items that we don't think through and we haven't really uh bounced into we haven't we

00:38:46.700 haven't uh dedicated ourselves to get up and become a leader look at australia like australia

00:38:53.260 how many years ago was australia really decimated australia was in rough shape

00:38:57.820 two decades ago yeah two decades ago when you talked about australia people people you'd be

00:39:02.780 at a party and someone say you know you hear about australian yeah yeah it's a real mess right now

00:39:07.100 right they made active decisions to change the course of that country right they they weren't

00:39:13.020 going to subsidize companies anymore they got out of subsidizing auto got out of subsidizing

00:39:18.300 manufacturing they said we're not going to do that anymore we're going to put our money into

00:39:22.940 technology we're going to reinvest in mining and resources and they got into it and look at them

00:39:28.380 now they're a powerhouse between their natural gas liquid natural gas production the iron ore

00:39:34.380 they still have they still produce coal steel making and thermal okay in queensland um and and

00:39:41.100 of course lithium like they they they don't snub their mining sector uh and they have one they have

00:39:47.420 a higher standard living than canada oh yeah and and this is the the unfortunately especially in

00:39:53.900 southern ontario this snubbing of mining uh uh oh well just dirty like like i literally remember

00:40:00.620 in 2000 in 1999 uh mining was a sunset industry a lot of the political pundits in the left-wing

00:40:09.580 newspapers oh you know this is the beginning of the dot-com boom and we should just look at

00:40:15.900 technology let poor countries uh do the mining the dirty stuff we're so prim and proper uh we 0.96

00:40:23.500 don't want to get into that stuff 25 years later boy has that tune changed realizing that all these 0.61

00:40:32.300 evs that you want to build well they're made out of the stuff we dig out of the ground yeah lithium

00:40:37.900 being absolutely a critical part of it nickel isn't an issue because my hometown of sudbury

00:40:43.660 we're still digging nickel out of the ground for we've been doing it for 130 years and we

00:40:49.340 for all we know we might be doing it for another 130 years uh so we'd have nickel copper cobalt

00:40:55.580 but the lithium that that is i i really do believe quebec will be a a lithium powerhouse

00:41:03.420 and i wish the federal government would start investing i mean i i know they gave money to

00:41:10.460 the uh direct lithium extraction in alberta right and i'm not saying don't do that but that's an

00:41:17.740 experiment the the the material the now and here the here and now that we can get actual lithium

00:41:25.580 out of the ground and into the product is going to happen in quebec and and acknowledge that and

00:41:31.580 maybe put more research and development into lithium processing do we what else do we need to

00:41:37.900 do in the uh the james bay region for infrastructure if if there's something lacking like actually

00:41:45.180 talk to the people uh in that region and to the bureaucrats in quebec city and say look we need to

00:41:53.820 turbo charge this industry what else can we do to help you guys uh ensure that uh the the next

00:42:02.060 generation of lithium deposits are going to come in quebec and are going to uh be prosperous well

00:42:07.980 you know we talk about on many shows the chinese you know in different i get it different political

00:42:13.820 system different economy but when they make up their mind to go in into an industry right they

00:42:19.500 go in and they strategically plan it out they build the cities they build the roads they build

00:42:23.820 the entertainment for the people they incentivize their citizens to move to that city to get in that

00:42:29.740 industry to get that resource to get that thing done to manufacture refine it and get it to market

00:42:34.780 those are things that we haven't done and quite frankly it's sad that we don't do it

00:42:38.860 i think you know with all this going on in the world and and you know we just were talking about

00:42:43.180 i ran a few minutes ago with what's happening now that will change yes i'm hoping so i do believe

00:42:50.140 it will change it'll as a necessity we'll be forced to refocus ourselves on things that do

00:42:57.900 make us more productive make us uh our better investments for the country so you know as as

00:43:04.060 as we all refocus back on canada and the western hemisphere and what's going on and trading with

00:43:09.020 each other it'll hopefully cause us to kind of wake up and say okay here are our key resources

00:43:14.460 here's what to go after and quite frankly with the changing environment of manufacturing we're

00:43:19.020 seeing it now right you know and it's kind of funny we do show after show on housing well

00:43:24.380 housing's not moving houses not growing housing's not okay because you need the other sub industries

00:43:30.620 to make housing go housing you can do it all you want you can build more houses you can build more

00:43:35.340 affordable houses you can do whatever you want with houses you can subsidize houses if you don't

00:43:39.660 have industries around those houses that'll allow people to make incomes and buy them and do all

00:43:45.020 those things it makes no sense you have to get that manufacturing structure whether in ontario

00:43:50.780 moving again you can only do that by doing things in ontario building things in ontario aside from

00:43:57.020 housing housing is not housing is a result it's not the core business right and i think we've lost

00:44:03.100 we lost focus on that we got sort of focused on we we got going in covid we got focused on a bunch

00:44:09.420 of things whether it be tech you know i you know i i think tech's important ai's they're all great

00:44:14.940 things when i'm hungry and my family wants to eat at dinner i can't eat tech yeah right i need energy

00:44:20.700 i need food i need all those things to make the world move those happen by creating industries

00:44:25.740 that manufacture things create things and build things yes yeah and and quite frankly that's kind

00:44:31.340 of where we we went sideways during coven and i hope we come back yeah and and the resource uh

00:44:36.380 sector is just it's a foundation of everything basically uh and and even when you look at the

00:44:41.580 potash uh or phosphate mines again going into fertilizer uh if we didn't have if we didn't

00:44:47.980 dig those out of the ground well then we wouldn't have the crop yields that we have and people

00:44:52.380 would starve it it's fundamentally is what are we teaching our kids in school like i mean i i've

00:45:00.300 always thought you know we we need some sort of a resource education program and i'm not looking for

00:45:05.020 propaganda but just some basic facts that uh you know the whole issue of power for these electric

00:45:11.740 vehicles well what people don't understand is that uh everyone goes on about wind and solar but

00:45:18.060 whatever the plate capacity of say 100 gigawatts of wind or solar well with wind we can only use

00:45:25.980 30 of that capacity and was solar 20 we always have to have a backup right and and that's what

00:45:34.060 you know when people say oh well we'll just do batteries well the batteries aren't that big

00:45:40.940 governments have to make a decision on on we need industry we need power for industry yes solar and

00:45:48.700 wind it may be inexpensive but again when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine

00:45:55.180 where do we get our power and and and there's only the the holy five i always call it there's coal

00:46:01.740 there's oil there's gas there's uranium and there's hydro right those five uh is what we get

00:46:09.740 electricity from each of them has their drawbacks i agree but if you want your lights to go on in

00:46:17.020 the morning and you want a job that requires electricity to or you want to go onto your

00:46:22.780 laptop you need power and that is how we get it yeah and and to to to have these left-wing editors

00:46:31.020 in the in the media go on and make it sound like well we don't need this uh we could get rid of the

00:46:36.780 oil and gas industry uh and and we can just have solar and wind is just it's it's almost like

00:46:43.420 yelling fire in a crowded movie theater because people will read that and believe it and some of

00:46:49.660 our politicians read that and believed it and during the mcginty uh win era they made some

00:46:58.380 disastrous costly investments in solar and wind that we're still paying for because they read that

00:47:06.300 in the toronto star or the globe and mail which i think is going very left-wing in my opinion and

00:47:12.060 and they believed it and they made these massive decisions that we will be paying for and the next

00:47:17.980 generation will be paying for yeah it's a shame we all know we you know unfortunately you know

00:47:23.740 especially where uh we are today in ontario we see that uh even today you know as we travel around

00:47:29.660 and some of the bad decisions that were made um and the subsidies that unfortunately you know

00:47:34.780 people are are going well it's not sustainable for ford to subsidize power rates well true

00:47:40.860 but what these toronto star columnists don't say is it was the liberals that that got us into this

00:47:47.180 mess and he's trying to do his best and and look i'm there are things for does that i'm not happy

00:47:53.420 with and there are tons of things trump does that i'm not happy with but right now the left is not

00:47:59.740 giving me anything at all that i think is is doable there's a feasible solution yeah exactly yeah

00:48:07.980 lithium just as we you know before we go so you know we talked about a crystal ball so crystal

00:48:14.060 the ball me for a minute so five years ten years from now are we having this conversation you know

00:48:20.580 is lithium are we a major producer we will be i honestly do with the sizes of some of these

00:48:26.440 deposits of the exploration is just massive just just let me just say um winsome resources 78

00:48:35.000 million tons. Q2 metals between 225 to 334 million tons. PMET lithium we're looking at 108 million

00:48:48.520 tons. These are just massive resource calculations and a lot of these are still open at depth and

00:48:55.800 open along strength and line. We've just scratched the surface in the James Bay region.

00:49:02.200 um i'm quebec is sitting in the driver's seat in the lithium in my belief i think it'll happen a

00:49:10.420 lot sooner and i'm not trying to dismiss what possibly might happen in alberto with the direct

00:49:17.280 lithium extraction in the oil and gas brines but that's a bit of a gamble uh and the technology

00:49:25.760 isn't there yet whereas what we're um exploring for in the james bay region of quebec is a done

00:49:33.520 deal we once we find it once the infrastructure is there we can dig it out of the ground we can

00:49:38.800 concentrate it and maybe two or three more lithium refineries will be set up in quebec especially

00:49:46.160 with those good power rates if they give them the same power rates as they give the aluminum

00:49:50.640 um Quebec to me uh could easily be uh definitely North America's Australia so you heard it from

00:49:59.400 Stan so if you're young you're looking for a trade number one learn how to speak French yes

00:50:04.860 so and head up learn uh the lithium business get involved it's a great business it has a

00:50:11.340 growth potential of course I think so Stan thank you again uh Merci for my limited French and uh

00:50:18.120 for those of you watching stay tuned for more resource shows uh really interesting as the

00:50:22.600 world's changing we're going to be talking more about resources subscribe uh follow us on

00:50:29.080 our website and our app and we look forward to seeing you soon

00:50:39.080 patriotic means looking up for each other and fixing things together true patriotism

00:50:45.400 is being in a country you love surrounded by people you love and great weather being a patriot

00:50:50.600 is being a part of your community and caring for it it doesn't matter who you are or where you're

00:50:54.680 from patriotism is the one thing we all share it's okay to be critical of government and still be a

00:51:01.560 patriot it's gratitude to your country of course i'm a patriot i'm canadian it's my home well

00:51:07.480 Actually, true patriot love is the mission.

True Patriot Love - April 11, 2026

Canada’s Lithium Reality Check ft. Stan Sudol

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