The Financial Post reports in its Saturday edition that Patriot Battery Metals' shares surged this week after the miner celebrated its "widest, highest" lithium drill reading to date at a deposit the company is exploring in Northern Quebec. The Post's Naimul Karim writes that Patriot Battery is exploring properties in British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Quebec and Idaho. Its chief executive officer, Blair Way, is leading one of the hottest companies on the TSX Venture Exchange with its stock up 275 per cent from a year ago. Patriot's bet is on its Corvette property, a 21,357-hectare spread in the James Bay region in Quebec, which it discovered in 2016 after going through previous data on the property left by miners who were looking for gold. The property is near Australia-based Allkem's James Bay lithium deposit, a project that is far more advanced. Allkem received federal approval on Monday to develop a mine. Patriot reported results from 14 drill holes on Wednesday. One, named CV22-083, returned an assay of 2.12 per cent lithium at an interval of 156.9 metres. Patriot's good news comes when Canada is looking to boost its critical minerals sector in an attempt to create an electric-vehicle industry.