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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.
Don't feel bad. We can make the same claim, like this:
How is the sale of an American company to Chinese interests ever a net benefit for the U.S.? I've lost track of the companies that used to be U.S.-owned, even a part of America's national identity, that have been sold off to make a penny.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
...even a part of Canada's national identity (Tim Hortons)... Huh?www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
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.
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.
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.
Depends on the province. The ROC (Rest of Canada) would probably vote to sell Quebec to the US, but the US already has too many people who "refuse to speak english like God intended them to." Besides, Americans are still pissed off about our tricking them into taking Celine Dion.
They were wholly-owned by Wendy's Corporation for a few years. Just recently spun off into their own entity.
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.
I call bullshit. See what would happen if Lockheed Martin tried to build their new fighter planes in a different country. Or sell off their satellite division to another country. It would go over like a lead balloon in a wind storm. Of course that wouldn't happen, the U.S. would never let companies sell off that kind of technology to another country.
Note that there is a historic sensitivity in Canada to selling off to other countries or otherwise dismantling high tech companies. Especially when said companies that could place the country in a very competitive place, economically and in a technical sense. Canada severely shot itself in the foot before... the pain just subsided over the past decade or so.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
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.