Thanks very much.
I won't take too much of your time.
First of all, thank you very much for inviting me here. It was at the very last minute, so I have only a few notes here in front of me and I don't have very comprehensive notes to go through.
Nonetheless, I would like to put my points across to you from my perspective, my perspective being not only a commercial point of view but more specifically the point of view of a commercial company that provides geospatial intelligence support operations to the federal government and also to international clients, minus the United States.
It is my position that Radarsat-2 should not only be operated by the Government of Canada--it is presently under contract from MDA to operate--but should also be owned by the Government of Canada. Radarsat-2 is an integral part of the government's national surveillance system, not only for the east and west coasts, but also for the Arctic areas in terms of Polar Epsilon and its follow-on, which the navy will be responsible for on the east and west coasts and also here at national defence headquarters.
In my view, having a national security asset owned by a private company is bad enough, but having that national security asset turned over to a foreign company that comes under a completely different set of rules under a foreign government is to me pretty outrageous. Canada is the the only country I deal with that has assets that we lease or rent from our own companies; my other clients around the world, in the Middle East and Europe, go out and actually buy their own satellites. Ownership is nine-tenths of the law. That's the bottom line.
It is first and foremost a national government's primary responsibility to ensure the defence and security of its citizens, its national territory, its airspace, and its sovereign waters. Radarsat-2 is a critical component for the Government of Canada to deliver on this, a component in a series of sensors and capabilities for surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance, but also, hopefully, in the near future, for force projection if it's necessary.
If Radarsat-2 remains under the control of a Canadian company--or even better, of the Government of Canada--then Canada's laws and Bill C-25 will applyto the Canadian company and to any client wishing to obtain and use Radarsat-2 data, including me. If, however, ownership of Radarsat-2 is passed over to a foreign company, then Canada's laws simply won't apply.
We're talking about the use of Radarsat-2 and its ownership today, but what about in five years? What about in ten years? When we as companies look at strategic planning, we're not talking about today. I can assure you that, yes, I can provide that contract support for you--not a problem--but at the end of the day, I'm actually looking ten years in advance. Do I need that IP, that intellectual property, in order to advance my needs for companies or clientele down in the United States? Sure--so, yes, I can appease you; that's not a problem.
In terms of operational control, at present my understanding is that Radarsat-2 is operationally controlled by the Canadian Space Agency under contract from MDA. How ironic. In turn, MDA has the sales and distribution rights worldwide. Even though this may seem like a good arrangement at this time, if the sale of Radarsat-2 is approved, then I might suggest all bets are off once the present MDA-CSA agreement is finished.
One of the questions that needs to be asked is what the intention of ATK is once these arrangements expire with the Government of Canada. It must always be remembered that companies think long term. Strategic planning over one, three, five, or even ten years, as I said, is key to their continuous survival and, most importantly, growth. A company's assurance today can be completely legitimate and very truthful. That's not a problem; not one of us wants to go to jail. However, what really matter, both for the company and for other stakeholders such as the Government of Canada, are the future intentions of the system down the road. That's not just the system that is presently going to be operated for the next seven years along with Radarsat-1 and other sensors, but the other sensors; what's happening with the intellectual property?
Finally, I would like to point out that I'm a businessman who owns and operates a company in the same field as MDA, albeit a little bit smaller, and I can respect MDA's desire to sell parts of its company that it feels cannot reach their full market potential unless sold to a U.S. company. Yes, they do have some legitimate claim in saying that to get into the U.S. market, they must be an American company. I'll emphasize right now that it's not necessarily being an American company; they must be U.S. citizens in order to gain the clearances necessary to gain the contracts. Again, at the end of the day, where is this leading? Is it the IP or is it the people they're after?
MDA makes claim that they are a people-based company--no question about it. But are those people willing to lose their Canadian citizenship and gain American citizenship in order to continue on with the contracts at a very highly classified, first-tier-level clearance, or are they after the intellectual property?
All I can say is not everything in Canada can be for sale. Yes, I'm a capitalist to the extreme, trust me on that. However, at the end of the day, when it comes to national security, that has to be first and foremost in our minds. I'm very happy that today, finally, after so many years, the Government of Canada and all the other members, in terms of the other parties, are in compliance that Canada must come first in terms of its national security. I've seen it too many times in the past that companies have provided or created some of the best technology in the world, and it ends up not just in the United States, but it ends up in China and it ends up in South Africa and it ends up in Europe. Why? They're looking for buyers and they're looking for money, and at the end of the day, well, that's what people are looking for.
Thank you very much.