Let me say as well, to be entirely clear, that I support Mr. Prentice's decision. I also support his stated intent to seek a national security exception through an amendment to the Investment Canada Act in the future. My only point here is that of those two policies, one got ahead of the other, in the sense that he had to read an implicit test into legislation to which he was already intending to seek an amendment to put in an explicit test later.
The point here again is that we need an explicit test in the Investment Canada Act and that the situation of Radarsat-2 and MacDonald Dettwiler underlines that point quite dramatically.
In terms of the satellite in question and the specific legislation available to the foreign affairs minister, I believe that Minister Bernier could have blocked this sale by taking the “transfer of licence” necessity into consideration and refusing the request for the transfer.
But I must say as well that one advantage of doing this under the Investment Canada Act is that the actual blocking of the sale is not restricted to Radarsat-2. That's very important, because Radarsat-2 has an expected lifespan of only seven years. We need to be moving towards the next generation, towards Radarsat-3, if we are to protect Canadian sovereignty and national security in eight, nine, ten, fifteen, or twenty years' time. There, we have to think about the technology in terms of the intellectual property, and not just about the equipment that is currently in orbit.
In that context, I would encourage this committee to support Mr. Prentice's decision, but take it upon itself, in conjunction with the industry committee, to work as quickly as possible to introduce that national security test in an explicit fashion into the Investment Canada Act, so that this kind of unfortunate and unnecessary messiness does not occur again.