Natural Resources committee  I think our 3-D map that's being developed by RADARSAT-2 and the follow-up map that will come from Constellation will be at the heart of all the other data sets that you put on top of that map to understand what's going on from a geological point of view. So the example I gave earlier was you'll get magnetic data from airborne instruments.

Natural Resources committee  It depends on the asset. With RADARSAT-2 we're measuring the topography, and we give that to you in 3-D to quite a high resolution. If we use another satellite system that has what's called Elban, which is a different frequency, it will penetrate and give you the water moisture down to just under a metre—to half a metre or three-quarters of a metre.

Natural Resources committee  No. In my view, it is an opportunity. We have to react to a situation in which things are changing, but if we are aware of how they are changing, we can react in a well thought out way. The permafrost is melting, but it's melting here, and it's not melting there. We provide these data.

Natural Resources committee  One of the things that I think is important to allow us to do that effectively is to have a data policy under which the data is free. So look at what our data sources are, where we're measuring parameters in the north. We can do three-dimensional mapping of the north down to the resolutions I gave you earlier.

Natural Resources committee  I can't comment on the outcome, but I can tell you what we can do. In forestry we can measure the infestation of the pine beetle. You see it with your own eye from space, but our RADARSAT-2 can see it, and you can watch that propagation from west to east. In hydrology it's something we don't do right now, but we could easily measure the flux of the spring where water rises six feet and then watch where it goes.

Natural Resources committee  No, I don't, I'm sorry.

Natural Resources committee  If I could just add, my role in that meeting was in the monitoring activities the Space Agency could provide, I believe, because that became a major contribution that Canada could make to the rest of the international community. That's an important point.

Natural Resources committee  I think this is exactly what the Canadian Space Agency can do and what other space agencies around the world can do. The quality and the quantity of our data now is frankly unbelievable. We used to have resolutions that were 30 metres; we now have resolutions that are half a metre.

Natural Resources committee  The cuts are not within my mandate. I'm not sure what the cuts are, so I can't really comment. I can say that the United Nations has asked the Canadian Space Agency to bridge the gap, starting in 2014, to build another satellite that will measure greenhouse gases and trace elements, including ozone.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  Not as a president of the CSA, but I was on the government's advisory panel for COP 15 in Copenhagen, and at that meeting among the negotiating team for Canada was a plan for how you were going to meet the targets in COP 15. One of the major areas was the transportation sector. By reducing the emissions in the transportation sector—I forget the number right now, but it was more than 50% of our output—you could go a long way.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I did. I was fortunate to fly in the same month, October, in 1992 and then again in 2006. As you know, seasonal changes are still larger than the yearly climatic changes that we're seeing, and so having the privilege of flying in the same month allowed me to see the climatic changes and not just the seasonal changes.

Natural Resources committee  I have to be careful with that answer. If you were to look at what's happening up north in the summer...the ice, for example, used to be open in M'Clintock Channel four weeks of the year. Now it's open six weeks of the year. In the time we've been measuring it, that is a substantial difference.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I can. In 1987 I flew over the northern depression measuring ozone. We have a vortex that goes around the North Pole, and it takes three weeks in the spring to complete its circle. If you fly through that vortex in the spring you will see what, until this year, was a depression.