There are two separate pieces of legislation that concern Radarsat: the Canada Investment Act, which comes under the authority of the Minister of Industry, and the Remote Sensing Space Systems Act, or RSSSA, which provides for a mandatory satellite operation licensing system. Pursuant to this act, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is responsible for issuing, amending and renewing licenses. Both departments are involved in this and the fact that the two committees have passed the same resolution...We are not making any demands. We merely want him to stand by his decision.
The motion is worded in a very diplomatic way. Diplomacy is important in the field of foreign affairs and this motion smacks of diplomacy. I think that adopting a motion is a very nice way of conveying our support to the government. It is not every day that opposition parties support the government. This one time that I do actually support the government, I think it would be nice to adopt a motion to that effect.