Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My motion is concerning the sale of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, MDA, to Alliant Techsystems, ATK, which would have them purchase the Canadarm and the RADARSAT satellite business for $1.325 billion.
There is a review being conducted by Industry Canada under the Investment Canada Act. The industry minister is involved in that review.
There are questions and concerns around this sale, some of which I'll briefly mention. Certainly there has been significant public investment in the RADARSAT project. The company to which that will now be sold, ATK, is a manufacturer, amongst other things, of land mines and cluster bombs. So there are questions about whether Canada's international obligations will be considered. There are concerns about whether we will be treaty compliant as a result of this sale and about the use of the technology and who will get information from this technology.
We have heard the industry minister say that he would consider a national security test for foreign takeovers, but we haven't had any explanation about what that could include and whether this might be a sale where there are security considerations.
There are many questions about this sale. I have had a number of calls and emails sent to my riding about this. I think it would be very appropriate to have the industry minister, who is the person responsible for overseeing this review, here so that we can ask him about the criteria for the review and any other information he is able to supply us. In addition, he can hear concerns we have and the kinds of questions and requests for information that we're getting from our constituents.
My motion calls on the industry minister to come before the committee within the next two weeks to answer questions about the proposed sale.