The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that Zeeshan Syed, a former Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) executive who was engulfed in a public sector spending scandal in Alberta four years ago, welcomed two Liberal cabinet ministers to the Thunder Bay site of his junior mining company's proposed lithium refinery last week, and is optimistic he can attract taxpayer funding for the venture. The Globe's Niall McGee writes that the visit, which was widely publicized by Mr. Syed's company to attract media and investor attention, saw both François-Philippe Champagne, the Federal Industry Minister, and Patty Hajdu, Indigenous Services Minister, heap praise on his struggling penny-stock mining company, Avalon Advanced Materials. In 2019, Mr. Syed was censured by Alberta's Auditor-General, and the province's ethics commissioner, for financial mismanagement during his tenure at AER. The allegations included profligate spending of public-sector funds, secretly setting up a for-profit venture within the public-sector entity and working with AER chief executive officer Jim Ellis to make sure they both would profit from it handsomely. In an interview, Mr. Syed dismissed the AER controversy as insignificant and inconsequential.