Industry committee  Good afternoon, and thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you today. I'm Steve Staples, the president and director of the Rideau Institute, an independent, non-profit research, advocacy, and consulting group based here in Ottawa. During my career I've had the opportun

Industry committee  Okay. Thank you. I have provided a brief. I would just say that I believe that this deal will have no less an impact on Canada's space industry and our capabilities than the cancellation of the Avro Arrow had on our aerospace industry in the 1950s. I believe that the loss of te

Industry committee  Just very briefly on the ITAR issue, this has been a problem that has confounded the Canadian government, I think going on for a decade now, in terms of trying to get around these regulations. Most of the international community views ITAR as a rather protectionist measure that t

Industry committee  I have just one point. From the company's president himself, John Shroyer--and this maybe even goes beyond the ITAR issue--he says they want us to be able to move the technology, the piece of that RADARSAT-2 they're after, and we think they're after a specific component of the te

Industry committee  I have only a little to add to Mr. Byers' testimony. We have to remind ourselves that around $400 million of the investment was advance purchase of some of that imagery. So we prepaid, like your cellphone, some of the use of this satellite. It envisions a certain ability to jum

Industry committee  It's difficult to say. Clearly we'd have to ask the government about that, but in some cases you've seen arguments that foreign investment in a particular Canadian industry could be beneficial in terms of building more jobs and more investment within Canada. You could see it pe

Industry committee  In my experience, we have been trying to advance the idea of a space policy for Canada. The Rideau Institute has been engaged with a variety of stakeholders within government, in the public sector, and in the private sector. To address Ms. Nash's comments and the previous ones,

Industry committee  Very briefly, just to correct the record, the actual agency that's designed to promote Canadian industry to U.S. governments and other government buyers is the Canadian Commercial Corporation. They are the ones that administer the defence production sharing agreements with the Un

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, you are.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you very much for inviting me today. I'd like to introduce Mr. Steven Shrybman, our legal counsel, who is prepared to provide you with information and take your questions regarding our legal opinion on the Remote Sensing Space Syste

Foreign Affairs committee  I would only add briefly to this, and I take your point, Mr. Chan, that we have to look at the broader implications of these things, and not just industry ones. I'm reminded of a U.S. ambassador who always reminded Canada that in the view of the United States, security trumps t

Foreign Affairs committee  Briefly, on the question of intellectual property, Mr. Friedman, the CEO of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, appeared in this room at one of the other committees. He gave us an interesting reminder. There are three aspects to this that you need to look at. First, there are t

Foreign Affairs committee  I wouldn't wait until we had a complete space policy before we get those investments going. I think there are a number of projects already on the books that are waiting for the release of funds that I would include in that. But certainly they could happen at the same time to ensu

Foreign Affairs committee  Members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting me here today on the topic of Canada-U.S. relations. I'd like to focus today on two areas that are emerging as priorities for the Obama administration that offer Canada the opportunity to pursue our nationa

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure, I'm happy to. Thank you for the question. I think you had former Prime Minister Joe Clark appear before the committee as well. We had him at our annual dinner, and he gave an absolutely gripping presentation outlining the spending reductions that have been incurred by the