Evidence of meeting #25 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was safety.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I'm sorry that you've ended up being placed in that position, and I thank you for your testimony today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you very much. Our next round of questions goes to MP Généreux.
Mr. Généreux, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Again, I want to thank the witnesses. Their evidence was very informative.
I'll now turn to Mr. Bain from NorthStar Earth and Space.
Mr. Bain, you said at the start of your presentation that your technology would make it possible to monitor, or at least know about, the existence and location of space objects.
This may sound like a silly question, but I'm asking it anyway. Are you talking just about satellites, or are you also talking about waste from spacecraft out there in the universe?
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder , NorthStar Earth and Space
Actually, Mr. Généreux, you asked a very good and relevant question.
It's important to know that, normally, a satellite operator knows very well how to find its own satellite. This year, SpaceX, Mr. Musk's company, will launch 1,567 Starlink satellites into space. However, 10% of these satellites will be lost. We're talking about approximately 150 satellites in this case.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
You said that we'll lose these satellites, but where will they go?
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder , NorthStar Earth and Space
Mr. Musk doesn't know. He has no control over the satellites, which move in space at a speed of eight kilometres per second and whose trajectories are unknown. This poses a problem. As an engineer, I calculated the kinetic energy associated with a 260-kilogram satellite moving at eight kilometres per second. It amounts to two tons of TNT moving through space and not being tracked closely.
All our GPS satellites, especially for meteorology, are part of these “bombs”. We need to deal with this. The people at NASA said that the most important thing for the whole world and for our planet was that the observation of climate change was being done from space. The same is true for all our financial transactions. Losing access to space would be a major issue.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
So there's a real danger in terms of the movement of all these satellites in space. Telesat will launch 300 satellites, I believe. You're talking about 1,500 satellites.
Do you know how many satellites there could be in space in five years?
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder , NorthStar Earth and Space
By the end of this decade, there will be 100,000 satellites in space. There are currently about 3,000. As you pointed out, there are millions of objects in space, waste, whose trajectories aren't being properly monitored.
We're proposing to map everything out there so that it's possible to properly navigate around the objects that pose a threat to the satellites operating in space.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Mr. Bain, I asked Mr. Labbé earlier about the national strategy that has been implemented over the years.
Do you believe that this type of strategy would be beneficial to your company, as it was to Mr. Labbé's company?
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder , NorthStar Earth and Space
I completely agree with Mr. Labbé. It's essential to focus on a program to specifically support the aerospace industry. It's even more important under the current circumstances, given the economic situation and the global pandemic.
It's very important, not only to support research and development and technology development, but to turn this into a market, with the support of the Government of Canada. It's a critical need. As part of the Government of Canada's strong, secure, engaged policy, I hope that engagement means working with the industry to accomplish something real and sustainable.
Sustainability affects not only the natural environment, but also the economic environment. The decision to play a role in this area lies with the Government of Canada.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Mr. Bain, when we talk about a national strategy, there's the issue of funding.
Can you specify what this would look like specifically for your industry?
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder , NorthStar Earth and Space
We need funding to develop technology specifically for the aerospace industry, as Mr. Labbé pointed out.
Also, as Ms. Cianfarani said, we need a cheap stimulus strategy and policy to support innovative start-ups and entrepreneurs who are launching their businesses.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you.
I want to thank the witnesses.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder , NorthStar Earth and Space
Thank you, Mr. Généreux.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you.
MP Ehsassi has offered his time to me for the last round of questions, so I will turn the clock button over to the clerk for the sake of transparency.
Mr. Clerk, if you could set the clock at five minutes for me, I'd appreciate it.
I wanted to take a look at what we've heard over the course of this study. Given Canada's geography, we cannot not support the aerospace industry. We've heard many people talking about it not just being a question of airlines. We're talking about MROs and the supply chain. We don't have the infrastructure across Canada to not support the industry.
Monsieur Labbé, you mentioned problems with what we would call policy lurch, for instance, changes in electoral cycles and changes in governments and then starting over from scratch, and the fact that for many of these projects, the R and D takes many years—five years, ten years. The reality is we need sustainable, projectable funding for the industry, and I hear you.
When it comes to Strong, Secure, Engaged, I think that was the point of the defence policy, that those plans continue based on the needs, to provide a plan for the next 20 years regardless of who is in government.
I want to pick up where my colleague MP Erskine-Smith talked a little about the question of why we need fighter jets. Many of you on this panel will know I am a military family with two children serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. I know full well exactly what the Canadian Armed Forces are being faced with, the fact that we haven't been able to recapitalize in many years, over consecutive governments.
Ms. Cianfarani, you talked a little about accelerating procurement. There are opportunities, if we were to leverage Strong, Secure, Engaged. Not only do we need to do these projects, not only do we need to recapitalize our military, but this is the smart thing to do in terms of economic and industrial benefits for Canada.
Can you talk a little about other projects that you think we should be advancing? You alluded to some, but also with respect to the north warning system, we know this also needs to be replaced. Given the Northwest Passage and the interest from Russia in our Northwest Passage, could you talk a little about some of the opportunities for us to put some of these projects forward and get some of these done.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries
It's a bit of a challenge for me to talk specific projects, obviously. As you can imagine, we do have competitors within the association that would be positioning themselves, so I'll talk about it very generally.
One is that we need to look at projects on book that could potentially be advanced within the cycle, meaning the technology is available. We have capacity in the country, and we can look at Canadian firms that have world-leading, key industrial capabilities that could be sourced for those types of technologies or in partnership with other nations.
When we look at the north warning system, for example, most likely some of that radar will come from United States partners, so we need to look at how we could promote a partnership project that could move it forward and perhaps even take it out of what we would call the traditional fair and open procurement mechanisms, which we're not necessarily against, but we are against the very lengthy 10-year processes that sometimes come with those types of competitive environments and sometimes not necessarily to the benefit of Canadian firms.
When I gave you that shopping list about using industrial and technological benefits policies much more firmly, or using what we call mandatory requirements or carve-outs where we say this technology exists in Canada, Mr. Partner in the United States, we are mandating you to use that technology because that supplier exists. That type of logic is used significantly in other countries. You will not see a fighter jet purchased by the United States government that is not made in the United States.
I'm not suggesting that we're going to start building fighter jets in Canada, but I'm suggesting when we look at things like training, we're the world leader in training systems in this country. It would be a terrible shame if Canadian firms were not sourced first and foremost for the training programs coming up. There's no reason we can't advance them in the procurement cycles.
Those are the types of thinking. It's not a question of can we do it, it's a question of willpower for us to do it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you very much.
I think I am out of time. I'm looking at the clerk. Yes, I'm a little over.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries
I ate up all your time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
No. Thank you very much.
That's all the time we have today.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here, for your frank conversation. It's apparent there's a lot of work in front of us to look at how we can support the aerospace industry.
Again, a big thank you to our interpreters for the work they are doing, to our IT gang and, of course, to our clerk and analysts in the room.
This meeting is adjourned.