Yes, and I'll go back a good number of years to when it was first announced that MDA was awarded the contract and the impact it had upon the geomatics industry. Some of them were growing and some of them were very prosperous, both through contracts with the Government of Canada and internationally, and then there was the announcement that all ownership and copyright laws were to be passed over to one particular company. This impacted significantly in terms of further research and development in which other companies wanted to participate with the use of Radarsat-2, because so much work was done with Radarsat-1 and 2. And I'm talking applications here--whether agriculture, forestry applications out in western Canada, in Quebec, and so forth, and also for national security.
All of a sudden we were told by the Government of Canada of the day that in order for us to obtain any funding, in order for us to obtain any support for application development, we had to cooperate with the biggest kid on the block, MDA. This impacted significantly. There's absolutely no question.
Many companies--and I'm sure some of them are still here, but some of them have gone bankrupt due to a lack of opportunity and a lack of support--were completely outraged at that stage and at that time when it was announced by the Government of Canada. It just so happened to be MDA that was awarded it. It had nothing to do with MDA. It was just the decision of having this private-public partnership where a majority of the taxpayers' money was to be invested in this, with a small percentage provided by that company, and then to turn around and tell us, “Oh, and by the way, if you want this, then you'll have to go to your competitor to get that imagery to compete against them”.
So from an industry perspective, yes, it's pretty outrageous. From a national defence perspective or a military perspective, yes, to me it's pretty outrageous. And I find it extremely insulting that I have to go to a private company. As a first-rate developed nation not having their own assets...only Canada.