I preface my remarks by saying that I do not suggest that the standards of performance be any less than they are. Today when we make a discovery in Canada of a uranium ore body that we would like to advance and turn into a commercial project, it takes a minimum of 10 years to get through the delineation, the pre-permitting, and ultimately the licensing.
This is an industry where we have a special regulator. I talked about the CNSC. We also have a provincial regulator so we have overlap and duplication between the two. Then you have the interplay with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, CEAA. In addition to that, there are several other federal agencies that always get engaged, such Fisheries and Oceans. The combination of all of those coming together ends up taking us years and years to get through the regulatory process.
In the meantime, competitors are quite able to live up to the standards of their country, which may be less or equal to ours, but because the process is streamlined and because the country has made it a priority to move these projects forward, it puts Canada and Cameco at a tremendous competitive disadvantage. What this means is that our high-grade deposits that would be quite economic are standing behind those in South Africa, Kazakhstan, Namibia, and Australia, because they can move through the system much more quickly than we can.