ln speaking with over a dozen companies with one or more Li...

ln speaking with over a dozen companies with one or more Li properties/projects in Canada, (there are ~80 pre-construction juniors with properties in Quebec alone), a few things stood out. Everyone knows that most of Canada has a very green power grid (a lot of hydro-electric & nuclear). So that gets talked about a lot with regard to Quebec. But, in the past few months, EVERYONE is talking about how serious Quebec is in trying to attract Li-ion battery, OEMs & cathode active material companies from Europe & (non-Chinese) Asian countries. Quebec & Ontario both, and they have already landed some major endorsements from Volkswagen, Ford, GM, Stellantis, LG Energy, Umicore, POSCO and others.

Quebec is talking about building a lot more infrastructure to support a tremendous boom in activity over the next decade. In addition, the provincial gov't is offering financial support for companies to improve upon or build new infrastructure on their own. That's on top of the flow-through capital raises (available in all of Canada) and tax rebates on exploration expenses (just Quebec). And, Quebec institutions & investment funds like, Investissment Quebec, Pallinghurst Group, Delbrook Capital, Sides, Maple Leaf Funds, Resources Quebec, etc. are actively investing in all things EV/Battery related (and recycling).

But wait, there's more. Not only is Quebec & Ontario a must go investment haven, various U.S. agencies are explicitly offering grants / loans to Canadian firms b/c the U.S. (in the past six months or so) has all of a sudden woken up to the Chinese threat and wants to secure safe sources of REEs, Li, uranium and other minerals/metals. Finally, it should be noted that both China & Europe have had a fairly slow Jan/Feb period regarding EV sales, but U.S. EV sales have remained robust. No jurisdictions are better positioned for the U.S. market than Canada.

All of this means that Quebec is going to be a major Li hub. Winsome will be among the first handful of producers of spodumene concentrate and/or hydroxide around 2026-27-28. There will be many dozens of Li mines & satellite deposits that come into play AFTER Winsome. Imagine what would happen to Winsome shares if a C$2.5 billion bid were to come in on Patriot Battery Metals... I think several companies would step up and pay C$2.5 billion today if they knew that bid would be accepted by Patriot's board, which it wouldn't!