Industry committee  There are companies in that field. I don't believe there's a company in Canada that can build satellites like we do, but apparently the government does, because they just competed the RADARSAT constellation.

Industry committee  All I can tell you is that I'm the contractor and I had a contract with Boeing. They were going to launch our satellite; they were very upset when we said we had to go somewhere else. We were afraid of getting sued. That's all I can tell you.

Industry committee  No, we have U.S. companies ourselves.

Industry committee  Absolutely, in every industrialized nation, you have to have a presence to do space work, including Canada.

Industry committee  No. I'm talking about the priority, the control, everything. All of those things have to--

Industry committee  What I'm saying is that the Canadian government is in control of what happens, and they're reviewing the situation as we speak. It's totally under their control. That legal opinion is not based on reading the documents that exist in the Canadian government. Of course, I haven't seen them.

Industry committee  Right. I have been in our business for 29 years. We cannot do anything without government approval--nothing.

Industry committee  Yes. What we have done is we have said to ATK, “Here's the contract, and you've got to say that you're obeying that contract”, which they have publicly said and privately said and signed and so on. That's my understanding of the situation.

Industry committee  That's up to the government that is executing a government facility, and you cannot change that priority.

Industry committee  The company has never been viable in Canada in the past. It's always had significant exports. We were bought and then subsequently owned by a U.S. company for five years. During that time we entered some markets in the U.S. that were still leading off, but then we brought the company back into Canada and we ran out of that, so we have a problem there.

Industry committee  I wouldn't call it investment. It's contracted and they are asked to do the work in their country. The ownership is all over the place. British Aerospace owns the fourth-largest defence contract in the United States. It's a British company. Most British companies are owned by the French, but they do their work in the countries according to the laws of the countries--another big misconception around.

Industry committee  The reason MDA is doing the sale is what I've stated. There is not enough business in Canada under any government or any budget or any plan to support a company of our size. It's just not possible. We have to export and we have to export to the United States.

Industry committee  No, it wasn't that big.

Industry committee  First of all, Canada is paying for data, so all cost overruns, operations, and everything are our problem—MDA's problem. The total cost of RADARSAT-2 to MDA is in the order of $200 million, and the total cost to the Canadian government is $445 million, I think I heard.

Industry committee  No, the launch was off the shelf. The bus was off the shelf with a few modifications. The instrument, yes, was an MDA build, but to build a repeat instrument, given that technology has changed--it's been 10 years and so on--you can maybe shave 10% off the original. It's not like it's half; it's not a significant amount.