Industry committee  No, certainly not. Our mandate was to promote the aerospace industry [Editor's note: technical difficulties].

Industry committee  Telesat is strictly, at the moment, operating communication satellites, so it doesn't get into the earth observation side of things.

Industry committee  If we were to go ahead with the Constellation, which MDA is completely capable of building--they came up with the concept; and if we were to go ahead with the ExoMars project, for which they persuaded the Europeans to allow us to build the rover that would go on this European mission to Mars; and if we were to build a hyperspectral satellite, which they have been urging us to do for a very long time, and which incidentally is extremely good for crop monitoring and for forestry monitoring and for natural resources monitoring and even discovery; if we were to do these things, which are in the national interest of this country, I am sure MDA would be very happy to continue with Canadian ownership.

Industry committee  Yes, certainly. It's a little hard, when you're remote, to give the right signals, but I believe MDA would bring forward the following arguments. I believe they would say it was a good business decision for the shareholder, and I agree with that. It was also necessary because it was not able to penetrate the American market, which is the giant.

Industry committee  That was part of its mandate, or one of its responsibilities. However, you are talking about challenges confronting the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Certain obstacles are virtually insurmountable: existing regulations, in particular ITAR regulations, and the fact that there is no free trade in the aerospace industry because this area has considerable strategic importance for that country.

Industry committee  Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Constellation program I'm very familiar with, because it was a memorandum to cabinet when I was president, and this was a logical follow-on to RADARSAT-1, then RADARSAT-2, and then to Constellation. The advantage of the Constellation, of course, is that instead of going over the Northwest Passage once every twelve hours, with RADARSAT-3 you go over it once every four hours.

Industry committee  I believe I can answer that. Bristol Aerospace can make small satellites--sometimes called micro-satellites--that are definitely in the small category. Again, there was a deliberate decision to build that capability within Canadian industry. That is nothing compared to a satellite that costs half a billion dollars called RADARSAT-2.

Industry committee  NASA has satellites that it owns. The private sector, largely in the communications satellite business, has satellites that it owns, and the military in the United States of course owns its own military satellites. The arrangement that we had with MDA was rather unique. I don't think there was anything comparable in the United States.

Industry committee  Yes, the whole idea is to grow the Canadian space industry. We keep revenue figures, and from 1996 to the present it has grown considerably. It's about a $2.5 billion industry in terms of revenues, looking at all space services and products, and it has grown steadily over time.

Industry committee  Are you talking about RADARSAT-1?

Industry committee  Well, RADARSAT-1 was a separate arrangement, and the operator of RADARSAT-1 was the Canadian Space Agency. We operated it. The data, however, were marketed by MDA through their subsidiary, RADARSAT International. They were quite successful in marketing this imagery to well over 60 countries, and they had a worldwide reputation and a network—in fact, a network of ground stations—throughout the world.

Industry committee  You're right, it was an arrangement between the Government of Canada and a company, MDA, back in the late 1990s. I have never seen the documentation from that time, and I was not there at the time, but I don't think it had any provisions about what would happen if MDA decided to sell to another party.

Industry committee  It's a difficult question. I think our ability to have astronauts fly beyond the next two or three will depend on whether we cooperate government to government with countries like the United States. They will accept a partnership providing we put something on the table that comes from Canada.

Industry committee  Correct.

Industry committee  Yes. Let me first of all correct something, or not correct, but clarify something you said previously, which was that in 1998, MDA was a wholly owned subsidiary of Orbital Sciences. I just want to make the point, for the benefit of the committee, that the MDA of 1998 was not the same-sized MDA that exists today.