I think the rationale for this change has been best expressed by Canada's largest satellite company, which is Telesat. Just on Tuesday the CEO of Telesat, Mr. Goldberg, testified before the Standing Committee on Industry on the benefits of changing the foreign investment restrictions as they applied to his company. He explained the situation as the fact that Telesat is the fourth-largest company in the world in terms of satellites, but it is actually much smaller than its three largest competitors. So their concern is that unless they have the opportunity to enter into equity-based alliances with other competitors in the marketplace, they're going to become increasingly marginalized in the international marketplace.
On May 5th, 2010. See this statement in context.