Yes, I have a few comments.
First of all, some people questioned the value of Radarsat-2, and I'll be the first to admit that I was guilty of that at the beginning stages. However, it has to be understood that Radarsat-2 was considered as one component of the buy-in to the future imagery architecture system in the United States, in support of or in relation to access to other data sources from the United States. I don't consider Radarsat-2 an intelligence collector. It is a surveillance system, specifically broad area surveillance, which has great value for Canada due to the size of our country.
In terms of a policy, what are we talking about? Are we talking about a space policy? As our friend here mentioned, there are two things we're talking about: remote sensing and space exploration--looking down and looking out. Do we need a policy? Yes, big time. We need a huge turnaround and a huge policy, and we need to identify the lead elements. Is the Canadian Space Agency in St. Hubert in a prime position for a lot of this? Absolutely. That's their job. But they have to be funded, and they have to be given the resources to do it correctly.
Intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, ISR, is a National Defence responsibility. This has to be integrated within the whole policy. Natural Resources Canada and Canada's Centre for Remote Sensing have to be taken into consideration, right now. The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing is a lead agency for the NMSO--a national standing offer--for commercial satellite imagery. It has been delayed for I don't know how many years because they're always asking industry for more and more input--procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate.
If I'm a company and I provide imagery as part of my business, am I going to wait for them to make a decision, or am I going to look somewhere else? These decisions have to be made, and we have to move forward. We need action on these things.
Again, the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing is another key stakeholder that has been ignored for many years--for way too long--and they have lost people. They have lost professors to the United States and to National Defence, to DRDC. They're all over the place. There is no cohesiveness at all.
So a policy has to be integrated, and all the stakeholders have to be in. But there has to be a fixed timeline. Let's not sit around committee for the next ten years. Let's do this within a timeline--six months. Make a decision and move on. That's what people want to see in industry, and that's what Canadians expect.