This is John Batchelor, speaking with my colleague Charles Burton, about Canada and China,

United States and United States and Canada when it comes to critical resources called niche

commodities, rare earthers, of course. Canada's got lots of rare earth. Question is, what is to be done in the trade between Canada and the United States rather than having to go to China?

Right now, I learned from Charles that Canada sends its rareers to China to be processed.

It's a very dangerous process.

It requires a lot of investment.

Here's Charles to inform this is the beginning of a long story about rare earths

and the high-end industry that needs them. More of this tonight. Charles Burton. Yes, I mean,

the question really is, would Canada be able to substitute the Chinese critical minerals?

Would Canada give up on the environmental and indigenous rights concerns

that are inhibiting Canada from going whole hog into exploiting the enormous resources that Canada has

in the north? And would Canada allow the United States to invest in the very costly process of extracting

these rarers?

And also the question of processing them into a form which can be used for high-tech

manufacture, which presently the limited

amount of critical minerals that Canada does produce are sent to China for processing.