Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We thank you for the opportunity to discuss our 2007 report of the special examination of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. I am accompanied today by Jean-Pierre Plouffe, the audit principal who was responsible for this audit.
As most of you will recall, we appeared before this committee in January to discuss the results of our report on AECL, shortly after the corporation posted that report on its website. For the sake of convenience, I have attached a copy of our opening remarks from that hearing. You will note that paragraph 12 includes our comments on the two MAPLE reactors. Essentially, we pointed out that there had been delays and increased costs, and that the corporation had yet to resolve certain technical issues.
Mr. Chair, we have not done any further work on these matters since our report in 2007. Therefore, we cannot comment on recent developments, such as the decision to discontinue the work on the MAPLE project.
We are currently completing, with a joint auditor, the audit of the corporation's 2007-08 financial statements. The audited financial statements will be included in the corporation's annual report which will be provided to Parliament through the Minister of Natural Resources. The corporation expects to submit its second report to the minister by the end of this month. As the report is not yet public, I am sure that you will understand that I cannot comment on it or on our audit results.
That concludes my opening remarks. We will be pleased to answer any questions from the members.