Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about a great Canadian success story.
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates is a multinational communications and information company in Richmond, B.C. with a long-standing partnership with the Government of Canada. For over 30 years, MDA developed technologies that allowed Canada to be a world leader in space.
Do people know that B.C. engineers mapped the globe before NASA did in the 1960s? Do people know that the Canadarm was developed at MDA? Do people know that MDA provided the initial platform for Google Maps through RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2, and is the world's leading supplier of radar earth imagery?
Today, thanks to the CASIA project, MDA offers world-class data dissemination and collection.
Recently, MDA acquired the U.S. company DigitalGlobe, a leading optical satellite imagery provider. With an impressive track record in the delivery of space technology, this would secure MDA's and Canada's dominance globally in radar remote sensing, surveillance satellite communications—