Industry committee  We are maybe one of the few companies in Canada that I think benefits from a strong Canadian dollar. We report our numbers in Canadian dollars, so when the Canadian dollar strengthens, it actually has the effect of reducing our revenue. We have a lot of non-Canadian dollar revenu

Industry committee  The adverse consequence is that there will be more consolidation in this sector. We know that when we participate in these consolidation exercises, we will be up against our foreign competitors. They're looking to continue acquiring and integrating other companies as well. What w

Industry committee  We've been very successful, I would say, in raising debt financing in the market. I think that, bluntly, investors outside of Canada have a better understanding of the nature of our business and are more comfortable lending to a business like ours. That's where most of the satell

Industry committee  It costs $100 million to launch these things.

Industry committee  No. I would say that our competitors are all really in the same business, which is to say just providing the pipe to users, who then decide what to put over that pipe, and again, that can be governments, that can be telecom carriers, that can be ISPs, or it can be broadcasters an

Industry committee  I can turn to my colleague here, too. I'd say there are two things. Again, there are the Industry Canada requirements. Before we even launch a new satellite, in the first instance we have to make the capacity on that satellite available to Canadian users, and we literally take

Industry committee  I will only speak with respect to liberalization of ownership on the satellite sector. As I've said, I don't believe eliminating ownership restrictions on Canadian satellite operators will have any impact whatsoever on content issues here in Canada, whether it's French language s

Industry committee  How many are building satellites of the type that we use? Zero.

Industry committee  MDA makes components that are on our satellites. Oftentimes, they'll make the antennas that go on our satellites. There's a company called COM DEV that makes certain switching that goes on our satellites. But by and large, for the type of satellite that we require--very large, ve

Industry committee  Yes. The U.S. has a capability, although the capability is now devoted almost exclusively to government missions. For commercial satellites, you're launching either on Arianespace, which is a European consortium, or the Russians have two launch vehicles that they make available.

Industry committee  I said 36,000.

Industry committee  We have an expert right over there.

Industry committee  Most of the improvements in satellite technology have to do with larger satellites. The more powerful the satellite is, the more throughput, the more bandwidth you can get to a particular user. That has been very important. Increasingly, the beams are more and more focused. Think

Industry committee  I know it's highly toxic. No, it's a very specialized fuel and it's very expensive. What dictates the commercial life of the satellite is by and large how much propellant is on the satellite. The satellite lasts roughly 15 to 20 years, unless there's an anomaly, and sometimes th

Industry committee  MDA has the capability to build--