Good afternoon, and thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you today.
I'm Steve Staples, the president and director of the Rideau Institute, an independent, non-profit research, advocacy, and consulting group based here in Ottawa. During my career I've had the opportunity to research and comment on many issues related to national security and Canadian industry, particularly in the field of defence. I was involved in the public debate on Canada's participation in the ballistic missile defence program. I'm the author of Missile Defence: Round One, a book on that subject that was published in 2006.
I've been tracking the development of RADARSAT-2 for a number of years and was invited to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2005 to speak about the Remote Sensing Space Systems Act, which was at that time called Bill C-25. At that time I was representing my previous employer, the Polaris Institute, and we raised concerns about the potential defence applications of RADARSAT-2 and the need for its sensitive technology to be firmly controlled by the Canadian government.
In recent years my work has become more involved in promoting Canadian leadership and ensuring that the benefits of space and its peaceful uses are made available to all nations and do not become another field of military and national security conquests that could result in disastrous consequences.
Canadian leadership internationally requires that the government have clearly defined goals. Hence the need for a comprehensive Canadian space policy to guide the development of Canada's space science, technology, and industry to maximize our benefits from the peaceful uses of space.
Today we've prepared a backgrounder for you as the committee examines the proposed sale of MDA's information system, which includes RADARSAT-2, and MDA's space robotics division, which is responsible for Canadarm2, the space station remote manipulator system, which is Canada's contribution to the international space station.
Since the beginning of the program, RADARSAT has been hailed as a breakthrough in Canada's ability to monitor our vast land mass and to better understand our geography, our natural resources, and monitor our coast lines. How prescient were its designers that today, with climate change and the eventual opening of the Northwest Passage to shipping, we would have this system available to us to ensure our security and to assert our sovereignty.
There are many green uses of RADARSAT-2, as portrayed in this brochure—literally coloured green—which was produced by MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates to promote the uses of RADARSAT-2. Its vision in this brochure is echoed by Michel Giroux, of the Canadian Space Agency, who in 2005 told the Canadian affairs committee that CSA has always maintained that RADARSAT-2, like RADARSAT-1, is an earth observation satellite intended for peaceful use. It exists to allow us to manage the earth's surface and to carry out environmental monitoring.
However, there is a darker side to RADARSAT-2, and that is its ability to provide imagery for military purposes. I say darker as it's encaptured by this other brochure by MDA, on RADARSAT-2 as well, which is literally coloured black, touting the satellite's usefulness to defence consumers—the green RADARSAT and the black RADARSAT.
Ironically, in this sale of RADARSAT-2 to the U.S. firm Alliant Techsystems, we may be undermining our own national security. We could be selling off our ability to monitor our coasts and provide our government with the data it needs to make decisions. As well, we could be eroding our industrial base and space industries, which will limit our future capacities.
Let me make five points about the sale of MDA's information systems.
This is a bad deal for Canadians. Taxpayers have invested close to $500 million in the remote sensing satellite RADARSAT-2. In contrast, MDA, the private owner of RADARSAT-2, has reportedly invested a much smaller amount—some estimates have been as low as $92 million. Yet it's selling this technology and its other space systems for a cool $1.3 billion.
There are also potentially grave negative implications of the sale of RADARSAT-2 for Canada's continued regulation of the satellite's operation to assure that it is “neither injurious to national security, to the defence of Canada, to the safety of Canadian Forces or to Canada's conduct of international relations, nor inconsistent with Canada's international obligations”, as prescribed in that 2005 Remote Sensing Space Systems Act, which was envisioned to regulate RADARSAT-2.
The third point—