Science and Research Committee on May 25th, 2026

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

When was that?

[Lisa Campbell]

It's planned. It's coming.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Oh, okay. It's never happened.

[Lisa Campbell]

Mr. Piedboeuf, can you give us some details?

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

What's the planned date, Mr. Piedboeuf?

[Lisa Campbell]

I want to make sure I answer you correctly.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

I know my time is up, Madam Chair, but my questions aren't being answered.

[Lisa Campbell]

Canada participates in the largest space missions: the James Webb telescope, the International Space Station—

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

I am asking to rank Canada's leadership on a scale of one to 10, but I'm not getting an answer. I'm asking which mission we're leading, and I'm not getting any names.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Time is up. We will come back in the next round.

With that, we will proceed to MP Mahal for five minutes.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

Madam Campbell, I will start with you.

Canada has world-class expertise in space science, yet this government has recently cancelled what would have been Canada's first rover mission to the surface of the moon, a mission that would have, if launched, been completely run by Canada.

At a time when our allies are racing to establish a presence on the moon, why would Canadians believe that the Canadian Space Agency has a serious long-term strategy for space leadership when a groundbreaking project has just been cancelled?

[Lisa Campbell]

As a result of the comprehensive expenditure review, the CSA is expected to save $41 million by 2029-30 and then, after that, $8.3 million ongoing. Savings were achieved by terminating and scaling down some projects as well as optimizing our workforce. It reflects the challenging budget decisions that had to be made.

I can say that we learned a lot through the work that was done on the project. In other words, technology was advanced that could feed into other projects, including the lunar utility vehicle, a $1.2-billion vehicle that is planned for the lunar surface, and the science continues. The science projects that were funded—

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Would you agree with me that making such a budget cut decision at this vital point of a project would have a devastating effect on...? You just mentioned in your previous statement that we have over 200 companies that are involved in this industry, with billions of dollars of revenue being generated by them.

Would it be fair for those companies that are invested in those projects, which have been cut all of sudden by these kinds of announcements by the government?

[Lisa Campbell]

This was a discrete project, which would have involved primarily one company. It was a competitive contract that was awarded. The company was paid for the work that they had done. The technology was advanced, and the science continues.

Yes, it was a difficult decision. It does, however, happen sometimes. There are other projects that the Canadian Space Agency has had to stop. In the current context, as I mentioned, it was in the context of an expenditure review as well.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

What I'm saying is that every Canadian has seen Canada's space expertise in action with Artemis II.

Shouldn't Canada be taking an active role in pioneering space exploration, rather than simply relying on participation in other countries' missions?

[Lisa Campbell]

We are actually advancing our space robotics and our surface mobility on the moon. These are important billion-dollar contributions that Canada will bring on its own.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

I would like to take you back to the budget cut on the lunar rover mission that has just been announced in the last budget. This sounds like another case where the Liberal government announces an ambitious project, spends millions of taxpayer dollars, celebrates the early progress and then walks away from the project without Canadians seeing any results.

The lunar rover mission has already passed important milestones. While most of its initial budget has been spent, who's responsible for this failure? Is it the Canadian Space Agency, the minister or the government that has failed to follow through?

[Lisa Campbell]

I wouldn't call it a failure, because some of the technology and science was advanced. As I mentioned, the science continues. The agency has a robust governance framework. Space projects are very hard, and not all of them progress to launch and testing in space. Some of them have to be stopped earlier, and it's the responsible thing to do if either they're not achieving their project goals in time or it looks like they may exceed the budget. There are a number of factors—

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

If the majority of the money had already been spent and the majority of the steps had already been taken in the project, wouldn't it make more sense to complete the project to make your presence known in the aerospace of the country?

[Lisa Campbell]

As I mentioned, the CSA was asked to save $41.3 million by 2029-30, so difficult decisions had to be made.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Let's move on.

Canada is putting more money into the European Space Agency partnership. At the same time, we are trying to build our own domestic space industry, as per your statements.

How do we ensure that this does not become another case where Canadian taxpayers fund innovation but commercialization and manufacturing end up outside of Canada?

[Lisa Campbell]

What's helpful about this—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up. Maybe we can come back in the next round.

With that, we will go to MP McKelvie for five minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all so very much for being here, and congratulations again on your successful mission. It was a lot of fun watching the launch at home and being glued to the television to see all those momentous occasions with Artemis II.

My question recognizes that we're on the science committee and we're having a lot of conversations around partnerships. One of the things that I think is so great about the Canadian Space Agency is that they are really important to everything you do, whether it be international partnerships, partnerships with the academic community here in Canada, partnerships with industry or partnerships with other departments within the Canadian government.

I'm wondering if you could speak to some of those partnerships and collaborations that you have with Canadian universities, and also colleges and polytechnics, because they're the ones that we're particularly placing a lot of focus on this session.

[Lisa Campbell]

Thank you very much.

We work with universities, colleges and schools across the country, many of which now have dedicated space programs. For all of the missions that I mentioned, there is usually a principal investigator at the heart of it: a scientist who has dedicated his or her life to exploring that star, advancing that mission and advancing that technology. Sometimes they work in industry as well, but often they're attached to universities.

In fact, there's also interesting growth that we see out of the University of Toronto with Space Flight Laboratory and Robert Zee. There's a gentleman there who believed in smaller missions, and that's one of the things that we've seen over time. Spacecraft have become smaller. We're miniaturizing the technology, which enables us to do much more and launch more at a relatively lower cost.

The science community is hugely important to us, and they're very passionate. There are experts in astronomy, experts in physics and experts in space science—you name it. Canada has extraordinary researchers. That's often why we're sought after. It's often why we're invited to be a part of missions. Often these are the questions: How do you find a budget for it? Who's going to be financing it? Is it feasible? Is it at a technology readiness level so that we can actually advance it? How long will that take? Those are the kinds of discussions we have.

We also collaborate very much with other government departments, as I mentioned. My colleague Madame Durand co-chairs a governance table of over 20 government departments to look at the demands for space services and solutions in Canada and make sure that we're planning for the long term together. Sometimes budget requests may come from the environment department but have a small space aspect because of the Canadian Space Agency's involvement.