Thank you very much.
First of all, thank you for inviting me. I do apologize for not having prepared remarks. I have circulated some highlight information from our 2008 handbook. The 2009 one is now being prepared. We have publications on our website. We also have hard-copy publications, including World Energy, in both French and English. Both versions are available on our website, but there are some hard copies available as well.
The reason we're a little bit pressed for preparation time these days is that we have our annual conference coming up Wednesday. I thank the Parliament of Canada for permitting me a brief advertisement. Of course, members have been invited to attend our sessions.
You can see, just by the profile of speakers, that we are addressing broadly the interests of the nuclear industry. It's a $6.6-billion-per-year industry in this country. We have a tremendous record of exports. In fact, when we looked at the results generated by the sale of two CANDU 6 reactors externally, for instance, we saw that there was a $5.973 billion hit on the GDP. So it is in fact a very prosperous opportunity, as has been outlined by Mr. MacDiarmid.
I can tell you that we in the Canadian Nuclear Association are thankful for the efforts being taken to ensure that we remain competitive. I would say, for instance, that as Canadians across this country look at developing the new and innovative industries that will carry us forward, they ought not forget about the nuclear industry, which is already at the head of many areas in the development of nuclear technology worldwide. Competitively it gives us a very big and prosperous opportunity internationally. I was pleased to see the investments brought forward in the budget along those lines.
I have all kinds of other information available for people who would like to check the website, but right now, with those brief remarks, I'm available to answer a few questions and go forward from there.