Slashdot Mirror
Canada Blocks Sale of Space Tech Company To US
Dave Knott writes "The Canadian federal government has blocked the $1.3-billion sale of the space technology division of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates to Alliant Techsystems, a major US defense contractor. Industry Minister Jim Prentice is quoted as saying he is 'not satisfied' the sale will be a net benefit for Canada. MDA is Canada's leading developer of space-based technology, including the famous CanadArm and the recently installed space station robot Dextre."
Suckers!
Now we have maple syrup, caribou, ice hockey AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY!!
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
How is the sale of a Canadian company to US interests ever a net benefit for Canada? I've lost track of the companies that used to be Canadian owned, even a part of Canada's national identity (Tim Hortons), that have been sold off to make a penny.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Well, if it were that simple we'd be moving companies to every frikkin' place we see opportunity, wouldn't we? Companies need regulatory approval before they can merge. This is more strictly so if they are defense contractors because you don't want other countries knowing your military secrets.
Heck, Google and DoubleClick needed approval from both US and EU Regulatory authorities before they could merge. That's because even though they are US based countries, they operate all around the world.
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
This was the 'real' reason for lack of sale:
We at Canada have a policy of selling any weapons to rogue states. That is why when everyone was busy selling arms to states at war we Canada stayed at the fringes. Now, we believe the actions of the US government and its policies are detrimental to the democratic progress. We believe they could either lead to external aggression (most likely) and internal repression. Thus the Canadian government has decided not to sell the space technology to the United States.
P.S: US please dont take this seriously, we still love you, eh.
Except for the one valid complaint that the government had helped this company along with a lot of support, I don't think anybody's even pretending that this is a justified intervention in the free market. (Whether Canadians have ever bought a US company that previously received lots of US government grants, contracts and other support, would be interesting; I'd be surprised if it *hadn't* happened, though).
But alas, it was tin-eared in the extreme to announce this just as Dextre was being installed and everybody's nationalistic pride in the company was at a peak. We've been smiling with pride every time a shuttle image showed the flag and name on the CanadArm for 20 years or so; and Dextre, another order of magnitude more impressive a technology, had us all rubbing our hands with pride and glee.
Then the owners do their best to give everybody an image of them saying "Thanks for the free help, suckers! We're selling out and off to Brazil with your cash!" This result was then predictable.
If they'd waited a year or two, perhaps couched it in terms of allowing the company to go on to greater achievements through partnering, maybe tossed out a few promises of continued location in Canada and all Canadian jobs totally safe (promises you can always break a few years later, it's not like PR is legally binding), they could have gotten away with it.
Now, they can't wait a few years and try again because the issue's been raised and the media will hype it up again unless they wait at least 10 years. And this was, by the way, our *Conservative*, pro-business party. Any chance of a future Liberal government allowing this one is much dimmer still.
no doubt aboot it
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Would a rogue state has a cache of nuclear weapons at its disposal? Would they have a leader who acquired his mantle against the will of the people and assumes all power, all the while actual elected officials are powerless to stop? Do rogue states invade soverign countries for no particular reason and overthrow their government?
You show me a country with those qualifications and I'll show you a rogue state!
-1 flamebait, +2 insightful, +1 funny... take that mod!
They're not our fwiends, buddy.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
We did, but we sold them to the Chinese.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No, it's not the company's choice. They've received a LOT of funding from the Canadian government, as did their predecessor.
It's the same as the sale of US ports to outsiders.
The issue is not with Dextre or the CanadArm. The issue is with Radarsat 2, which contains sensitive technology which is used by the Government of Canada to monitor and assert our claims of sovereignty over the Arctic.
Claims which the Government of the U.S. doesn't recognize. The fear is that if the technology and control of the tech is sold to a U.S. company, the U.S. government will be able to control what the Canadian Government sees - allowing, for instance, U.S. warships to use the Northwest Passage without informing the Government of Canada.
It has very little to do with nationalistic pride, and more to do with national security. Ask yourself, would the U.S. Government allow a company that developed and operates the spy-satelite network to be sold to a foreign power? It would never happen. Hell, you can't even export anything that uses encryption in the U.S. - which you can do in Canada.
Simple reason anyone buys anything. The quality was there and the price was right.
There is also the aspect of co-operation between nations in space travel to offset the load on any one organization/country. These days we are used to that concept with the ISS, however it existed to a lesser degree even back in the early shuttle days.
Primarily though I'd guess that NASA threw out a spec and proposal request and MDA said "Arms? We can build arms. We've been reaching for beer for years and sometimes them suckers are a long way away". Once the shuttle arm worked well, MDA was in NASA's good books.
- a pleased Canuck
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
Harper is a little fascist cunt like Bush. It's nice to see SOME members of the government still have their balls.
Hope the Libs... Hell, I hope ANYONE but the PC's win the next election. Harper seems hellbent on making Canada into America 2.
Forget that this is precious high technology that can, and has had spin-offs in the past.
Forget that Canada produced the world's first digital telecommunications satellite. Forget all the jobs and knowledge that will gradually melt south of the border. forget it.
It's much more basic than that. There is a long-time border dispute with the americans, we think the waters between arctic islands are Canadian waters, the US claims they aren't. The Americans have nuclear submarines, we don't. Now with the ice melting, http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=8df15e06-e40d-42da-b42e-61c0d0713260
there is a navigable channel shaping up that could take weeks off the time to ship from asia to europe. and there's oil up there, http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2006/01/arctic-circle-canadas-not-kidding.html
too.
One of the main uses of RADARSAT for Canada is to replace aerial reconnaissance for Ice forecasting. they can, I imagine, spot submarines as well, since the Americans, supposedly our closest ally, refused to launch them. So they were launched on Russian vehicles.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071025164751AAOF6Ur
http://www.studentsonice.com/blog/?p=79
We like our arctic, it is ours. We'd like the tax revenue from any oil that is pumped out of there. we'd like the revenue from a major shipping lane, so declaring it international waters is a problem for us. We can't afford to build nuclear submarines...
So it would be pretty @#%$@^%@ stupid to sell this company to a US arms manufacturer, which is, at the very least, clearly beholden to the US government for contracting.
rbrander wrote: Except for the one valid complaint that the government had helped this company along with a lot of support, I don't think anybody's even pretending that this is a justified intervention in the free market.
It's far more likely they're concerned with what the said they were concerned about, the Radarsat-2. The Globe and Mail business section said today In mid-March, the tide turned, and questions about whether U.S. security laws would give that country control of satellite data about Canada's Far North raised the spectre it might be used against Canada's contested claims in the Arctic. That image conflicted with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's high-profile vow to protect Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic, and made it a key political plank.
It makes little sense to sell your only far-north tracking satelite to a country that you're arguing with about far north sovereignty. Espcially after paying real money to the Russians to put it up!
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Extraction wasn't economical for a long while, but with the high price of oil lately, it has become extremely economical. There's such an economic boom going on that high school boys are dropping out of school to drive trucks in the oil fields.
You might claim I'm trolling, but I'm not. I'm absolutely serious.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I call b.s. This isn't just a publicity problem, this is a real-politik problem.
This is about arctic sovereignty and billions in future tax revenue. This isn't a political issue. No political party has ever turned down the prospect of future tax base.
RADARSAT II, which the americans pointedly refused to launch, is what we use to patrol our artic waters. Giving the Americans, the keys, the plans, and the ability to just delay things to death is beyond stupid from a strategic perspective.
Because even the US doesn't have infinite funds, so when they went begging for help with the shuttle, Canada said, just like Americans would: sure, we'll help, but we want the economic benefits at home. so we built the arm as our contribution to the shuttle program, and now dextre as our main contribution to the space station.
Why?
Why does Canada need to maintain sovereignty over a private company, in an era of free trade? Why not let the owners cash their chips in?
The US doesn't block this kind of thing on sovereignty grounds -- although to be fair it may be because the current administration doesn't understand that US sovereignty has any geographic limits...
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There is a bunch more to this, which never seems to make the press coverage. Radarsat2 was originally to have been a US-Canada partnership. But then the US realized that it would provide the kind of coverage of the US that the US now has of other countries - something it decided was unacceptable. The US withdrew, refused to supply some key components, and refused to provide the launch. The satellite was redesigned to use alternate components, and launched on a European rocket. So now the US is trying an alternate approach to recovering control of the situation.
They get to take another kick at selling out in 30 days, when they report back to the Minister. If the press hadn't got hold of this, it would already be a done deal.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
If you want to develop space-related technologies, don't take grant money from the government of Canada. Your government won't respect your property rights, and will intervene if you try to reap the rewards of building a valuable business.
Just because US/Canadian interests have coincided for many, many years doesn't mean the will always coincide, and I wouldn't want Canadians blindly trusting in the goodwill of the United States any more than I'd want the US to trust the national defense interests of Canada. Nations do not have friends and nations do not "like." If nothing else, it introduces a whole other country outside of your control that's privy to things you don't advertise. That's something that should always be approached warily.
The intervention is entirely justified under the Investment Canada Act of 1985
It seems that you are unable to distinguish between legality and justification.
This intervention is a theft from the shareholders of the company in question.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Thanks, we canadians don't support unchecked free market, it would just leave us raped by large corporations in health care like the good people of the US.
Selling of tax payer funded military and technology knowledge for petty cash to the US, who may then use it to invade states under false pretenses doesn't seem like a patriotic thing to do.
My favourite line from the show MASH was when Hawkeye announced he was a 'reformed druid'... "I worship bushes." I don't know how it slipped past the censors of the day.... probably too sly for their narrow imagination. :D I laughed my ass off.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Canada has most of the freshwater and oil in North America. It neighbours the largest military power in the world who also happens to have an "interventionist" foreign policy.
Fear is not quite the right word...
The construction of Radarsat II was mostly funded by Canadian taxpayers through the Canadian Space Agency and gifted to MDA. The financial details are given at http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/resources/publications/rpp-2008-annexes.asp. It is not chump change we are talking about: $421.6M (expected).
MDA is the 800 lb gorilla in the Canadian space industry. In addition to building the Radarsats, Canadarm and Dextre, MDA also built the MET station and lidar (laser radar) system that is on the Phoenix Mars Scout which will land on Mars this May 25. Losing MDA would be akin to the US losing Lockheed Martin. It could quite possibly destabilize the whole Canadian space industry, and so the Government was right to intervene.
Of course, there are reasons why a sale was made in the first place. The Canadian Space Agency's budget has been stagnant for years, and this has had a big impact on MDA. Hopefully the Government steps up and reinvests in Canada's space industry again given that they prevented the sale alternative.
c) It was our contribution to the international space station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
There have been rumblings of a sale to a US defense firms for months... and the company has been sending out trial balloons with the most likely candidates to buy the company....with absolutely no protest.
But with a minority government this could be used a as political hot potato...hence the use of the jingoistic "sovereignty" card by the current administration...gets points with the voters but makes no business sense.
Even the unionized employees at the Brampton plant realize they are doomed if this sale doesn't go through and they've been lobbying for the sale.
Absolutely. The U.S. disputes Canadian sovereingty in the high arctic. The U.S. also disputes Canadian sovereignty over national resources like oil and softwood lumber. Taking our raw resources without letting us cut trees into lumber or refine the oil ourselves (and the associated jobs) is not a good indication the U.S. 'likes you guys' as much as they 'like your resources'. Heck, you even want Canadian freshwater for frig's sake. Open up NAFTA. Go ahead. See what happens when you actually have to bid on that oil. Remember AVRO? Of course you don't. So here's the fear: a U.S. company gets ownership of Radarsat2, and the U.S. government prevents them from selling real-time images of the high north that show U.S. boats navigating the northwest passage or otherwise violating what Canada considers to be sovereign territory (territory, by the way, that the US also considered to Canadian-sovereign until the probability of large oil and other reserves became evident). Countries don't have friends, as we are so often told by your diplomats, they have interests. Selling Radarsat-2 is clearly not in our interest. Also, selling a finished, successfully launched and proven technology paid for by Canadian taxpayers in a finished form that is literally just coming online (and about to pay dividends) makes no sense at all.
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
Since it was clear from the outset this was a publicly funded project with national security implications, I think you'll have a hard time showing it to be 'illegal' (By the way, which laws are we talking about? Canadian Federal law?) -- especially since the funds probably came with an express statement to this effect.
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
Canada has supplanted the Soviet Union as the U.S. main rival in the space race. This calls for drastic measures. We may have the space shuttle, but we'll never catch up in Kraft dinner technology.
What this means is by 'government wants to encourage growth' you obviously mean 'government willing to buy and/or subsidize these companies' products'. Hey, wait, this is what the Canadian government has done!
Realistically, as has been said, if Boeing or LM were on the market, they would have been blocked. Instead, when American domestic companies associated with such high security projects are in trouble, the buyer is often forced to be another domestic manufacturer. This is really no different. While some might complain about sales like IBM's computer hardware division to Lenovo, in reality this is not comparable, and in any case the job loss from such an event is minute considering that such manufacturing already took place in Lenovo's home country.
It's also fairly ironic for anyone to complain that the United States is no threat to Canada. If the US gov't itself took that view, it would share much more of its technological secrets with not only Canada, but its other allies. For example, it took the UK being on the verge of bowing out of the JSF program for the US to provide the technolgoy necessary for them to correctly integrate that fighter with their own forces (mostly related to the computer code of the JSF, which the UK was originally not allowed to even know, let alone reprogram).
In short, not only is the blocking of the sale smart technologically and economically for Canadian industry and workers, but it is also smart security wise. The US has shown that it does not trust her allies on seemingly small things like this, so extending that same trust seems illogical to me.
I like to kill your couch. HE DIED HARD! MOO.
Really you're missing a few things since the US would block sale of just about every sensitive entity in the US to any other nation to make sure it continues to maintain control of it's satellites which is the main issue here.
Canada's gone through this before with the Avro Arrow anyway, and is learning hard from the past exactly what happens on top of it.
If people want to emigrate so be it, on the other side if you do develop something in your home nation and the government pitches in large sums of money and you want to sell to another nation you should expect that they're going to block you especially if they're going to lose control of a satellite/aircraft/other piece of sensitive technology that's used to watch over their territory.
Om, nomnomnom...
In other words, the government has the last say ... same as CanadArm and Dextre.
Too bad they didn;t name the new robot Dexter after this show instead.
I would tell the employees "Be suspicious - be VERY suspicious." How would a sale to the US change the order book? The short answer - it won't. Either they're producing something needed, or they're not. This BS about "you're doomed if we don't sell out" ignores this simple fact.
1. Their jobs won't be any more (and probably less) secure if it's sold to US concerns;
2. There's less reason for the Canadian government to continue to put more dollars into it if it's owned by US concerns;
3. There's an incentive for someone to start a competitor, to grab all that nice government pork (Canadian Bacon). No guarantee that it will be in Ontario, and in fact, more likely that either Alberta or Quebec will spend the bucks necessary (Alberta as an investment, Quebec as a political move).
Just "follow the money."
This was purposely left out. Back in 1982, when the constitution was repatriated, it was proposed to put the "right to private property", but it was not done to insure that a croporation could NEVER use the courts to get a person's property.
Now, you yankees can boast all you want about property rights, with the eminent domain supreme court decision (a government can expropriate a person to sell his land to a corporation that would pay more taxes), you look like a bunch of hypocrites.
And not having property rights in the constitution has the added advantage that you can block transactions that could have an adverse strategic effect, instead of blindingly let the "property rights" of a huge croporation rape everyone and their dog like it's done in the US.
You're absolutely right, consistency is marvelous!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080200404.html
So all American Oil companies should move North!
Great! There's lots of Free office space in
Montreal freed by lumber companies that have
trouble selling into the US market... something
about 50% tarriffs... Free market RULES!
With the high Canadian dollar, it's actually cheaper to hire people in the US (thanks to the housing crash, you can also buy a house in the US for less than Canada - one of my friends just bought a house in Florida for under $130k that was selling, 2 years ago, for $279k.).
Also, we don't generally go on wars of aggression, try to assasinate leaders of other countries, or otherwise act without cooperation from the rest of the world. There's a reason why terrorists haven't targetted Canada - Canadians are peacekeepers, and that's the role we want our military to take outside our own borders.
You have got to be kidding me. The British have a long history of hating the French; the Americans seem to think that even speaking the language a mark against a candidate for president. But Canadians? Meh. Rude jokes about French manliness, courage, etc. don't fly here they way they do in other English-speaking countries. We don't care a whole lot about France one way or the other. (That includes many Quebecois, who know that a sizable proportion of French are snobs who see the Quebecois as as country bumpkins with, as one such snob once told me, "un accent paysanne".) Dealings with America can be politically explosive. Dealings with France, not so much. Sure there's the "divorce Quebec" contingent, largely in the West - but most are clever enough to know the difference between Quebec and France, and we are oriented towards Asia anyway, not Europe or France.
Nowhere in the Canadian Constitution nor Charter of Rights you will find the "right to private property".
Governments don't grant rights, we institute governments to secure our rights. If the Canadian government fails to do so, then the Canadian people should overthrow it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I just hope that the "if" you are talking about will not be judged by US government(with US media included) but by Canadian people independently.
We don't need that kind of nonsense: we're the redcoats!!!
Other countries typically haven't screwed us over like our alleged closest friend. What's truly pathetic is that the US brought this distrust upon themselves.
-jcr Assuming you're American (I shouldn't, but for sake of argument...) the current US administration has been destroying your rights under your God-almighty constitution and Bill of Rights for the last six or seven years.
We'll think about removing our government outside of democratic elections only after the US population shows the guts to use that second amendment of yours as it was intended, and do the same to your government first.
Not that it makes the reference to the show any less funny, but "Dextre" is French for nimble. As in the easier word Dexterity :)
"I remember Y1K, every abacus had to get another bead"
Probably the same way Pussy Galore (from Goldfinder) made it past them.
Are you sure about that?
The French word for dexterity is "dextérité".
The word "dextre", I'm francophone and had never heard or seen it before, means "right hand (side)" according to the Petit Larousse 1995 edition. The online dictionary at http://www.granddictionnaire.com/ has a similar definition.
Another derived word is "ambidextre", meaning ambidextrous.
Canada doesn't matter?
You certainly want our oil and water badly enough.
So, still falling for that "mission accomplished" line like a good little prole?
The robot is a handy manipulator - "dextre" implies that. Look at the official name: "Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator". Do you really want to say you're using the SPuDMan?
On second thought, SPuDMan sounds cool, sort of like Mr. Potato-head. (or for former and future vice presidents, "potatoe-head").
"Mission Control, SPuDMan is on the job!"
Take those word back or we'll send Celine Dion back to the US for good.
I can see how one could use a diminutive of "dextérité" to mean nimble. However, the OP was saying that "dextre" was French for nimble. I was just pointing out that I couldn't find that definition in my dictionary.
No, it's not the company's choice. They've received a LOT of funding from the Canadian government, as did their predecessor.
It's the same as the sale of US ports to outsiders.
No, it's not the company's choice. They've received a LOT of funding from the Canadian government, as did their predecessor.
It's the same as the sale of US ports to outsiders.
To US hating fucktards like the the post above: http://gs.mdacorporation.com/about/client.asp MDA's biggest customer IS THE USA.20th century Marxism is not progress...
I highly doubt the PCs could win the next election, since they don't even exist as a federal party anymore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Conservative_Party_of_Canada
Oh please. I am so sick of hearing about how the US defends Canada. Exactly when has the US ever risen to the defense of Canada? We prosper because of our foreign policies not because of their military.
You can't take the sky from me...
You can't take the sky from me...
You can't take the sky from me...
462 million dollars is to 'grant money' as a PTC III crane is to a Tonka mighty crane.
I think disallowing a few wealthy shareholders from profiteering from the enormous governmental support the company has received is a small price to pay for retaining cutting-edge technology in our national portfolio without giving a veto on how we might use said technology to other nations.
First, the link you point do doesn't give a breakout of any dollar figures as to who pays what. The Dextre robot was made for NASA, but it was paid for by Canadian tax-payers.
Second, by your logic, barring the sale of US ports to Arab interests makes the US "Arab-hating fucktards."
Of course, double standards apply, same as with all the crooked activity on Wall Street and the mortgage crisis - it's okay for 10 million Americans to commit mortgage fraud, for hundreds of billions of dollars, and then scream "I'm a victim - bail me out!", all the while endangering the world economy with toxic paper.
We have the right to block the sale. The US doesn't have the right to tell us otherwise. You'd think after Iraq, you'd learn to stop meddling in other country's domestic policies. That "mission accomplished" must taste pretty vile by now. And yes, we told you so about THAT as well.
It may have been some sort of archaism - who knows? This sounds like a mission for SPuDMan!!!!!!
You know, the more I think about it, the more I prefer SPudMan / Spudman to Dextre. Bet the astronauts would, too.
A search on Google for spudman got more than 50K hits. It appears you're not the only one who likes the name.
There's a spudman magazine for potato growers, and a spudman triathlon. Spudman.ca will give you currency exchange rates. There's also a song and a youtube video.
I'm francophone as well, and I'm sure I saw dextre used as an adjective, meaning someone who has good dexterity. Though without surprise my Petit Larousse 1995 says the same thing as yours, so you're probably right :)
"I remember Y1K, every abacus had to get another bead"
I couldn't agree less with your assessment. I'm not from B.C. (which has more than its share of prejudice against Quebec). I'm originally from a small English town in Quebec. I was there when Bill 101 was passed. I was there for the first referendum. Separation would destroy my country (not my nation - I don't want Canada to be a nation), and would not be in the interest of the people of Quebec. Nonetheless, I support the right - affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada - to separate. It would be wrong as well as futile to thwart the democratic choice of a clear majority of Quebecers. Despite the bombastic rhetoric of a few Canadians, I'm sure the vast majority outside Quebec would agree with me. But it's pretty clear that people like you (who have here refused to even recognize a distinction between the people of France and the people of Quebec) won't listen to what people like me have to say. There's no use accusing me - because in the end the people of Quebec will have to work out their destiny among themselves.
Quebecers are not the only ones who suffer the failures of the federal government. The political and governance structures of this country are collapsing and being dismantled. We call ourselves a "democracy", but that is generous. Separation will not happen tomorrow, nor is separatist sentiment about to go away. In the mean time, it is our duty and our interest to repair and revitalize what democracy we have.
And what a lot of people don't realise (from watching mostly American TV) is that the Canadian market system is, at least slightly, different. Per a conversation I had with a regional manager for TD Canada Trust: it's against the law for a Canadian bank to be bought by a foreign company. That would explain why Americans are so astonished when our government gets involved, and why it's taking such an interest in the MDA deal.
Another big difference - we've only had 2 bank failures in the last 80 years (they were small regional banks in the early 1980s) and none during the depression. The US is expecting a couple HUNDRED failures this year and next ...