Briefly, on the question of intellectual property, Mr. Friedman, the CEO of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, appeared in this room at one of the other committees. He gave us an interesting reminder.
There are three aspects to this that you need to look at. First, there are the existing contracts between the government and MDA in terms of getting the imagery they paid for. Second, there is the licensing issue of Radarsat-2, for which we've done the legal opinion. Third, the one you are striking on, madame, is the intellectual property.
It was quite clear when the ATK executives appeared before the committee that they were most interested in the intellectual property of the satellite. That is the knowledge that's going to be needed to carry our industry forward. Even if we were to keep, for instance, Radarsat-2 and lose that intellectual property, our industry will be forever frozen with ten-year-old technology that's currently in Radarsat-2, because the technology has evolved.
From speeches they have given in the United States and from what their own executives have said, it was quite clear as well that ATK wanted to use the intellectual property, to move it to Pentagon classified programs. This would effectively rule out Canadians from participating in those programs because of ITARs and other problems. Our space industry and the future of our space industry are at risk if we lose that IT.