Canada.gov blocks sale of space company to US The Canadian government has stepped in to block the sale to America of a company which owns and operates a key surveillance satellite. The move will also safeguard Canada's space robotics technology, for which US space agency NASA says the nation is "world renowned". CBC reports that the proposed $1.3bn deal under which the …
Canada actually needs a spy satellite?? Now im just confused.. first they let just about anyone in. Second what kind of sea movements do they need to monitor? Finally "Chief Marc Garneau has said that sale of Radarsat to America would give away technology designed to protect Canada's sovereignty." I'm guessing that us Yanks probably have more advanced tech kit then them. besides I'd like to see the canucks defend themselves against China or Russia or anyone without our help.
>/ Paris because she likes to be on top in the dark.
1. To keep an eye on Americans
2. AFAIK, we have never let in any terrorists on a student pilot "I don't need to know how to land a plane" visa
3. American vessels poking driving through the Canadian Arctic
4. I'd like to see the Americans try to defend themselves against Russia and China without our help.
Just a few points
1: The world does not need the US to protect it. I would like to remind you WE are the ones moping up your desaster in Afganistan and we were the ones who sent the most men in both world wars.
2: We can defend ourselves vs china a lot better then you can. They do not own our economy and WE have a lot of natural resources still, unlike the US.
3: Personally, I am glad the gouv is finally starting to use the power we gave it to protect investments and industries that were mostly built on our resources and our tax money. Wish they had goten around to do that with Alcan.
Radarsat-2 is top of the line kit (read: US has nothing that does the same), capable of peering through clouds with a 3m resolution. As arctic ice recedes, Canada's northern/arctic territory is more and more valuable (shipping lanes/oil&gas exploration). The US has certainly, repeatedly, created laws that contravene Canadian laws. If they owned the Satellite, it would be simple for them to pass an emergency law banning Canadian access if relations get tight.
I also applaud the CDN gvt for this, especially in light of the taxpayer's money that funded the project
sidenote: two of the top engineers in MDA quit when the deal was first announced - I wonder if they want their jobs back :)
actually, the number of american servicemen both went to war back in the 40s, and the number of servicemen who died are higher. we sent nearly twice as many, thank you kindly.
11 million and some served in ALL branches of the british services in world war two.
we sent 11 and a half million from our army. another 3 million served in our air forces, and i'm not going to get into the numbers of marines.
"Iain Christie, head of Neptec (another Canadian company which does contract work for NASA), suggested that the Canadian government would need to put in more money if it genuinely wanted to be a spacegoing power independent of its mighty southern neighbour.
"Canada's role as a space leader is a fragile thing," he told CBC. "If the government is concerned about securing our strategic assests, there is a price to pay." "
I think those statements demonstrate the exact opposite to their space leadership being a fragile thing....... and Network InterNetworking RobotIQs would certainly take Beta care of more money Internally Invested for the Forward Looking Generation of Interest.
And what better time than the Present whenever so much of the Past Investment has been BogUS and Misguided causing Catastrophic Collateral Damage.... Big Blue on Big Blue.
"I'm guessing that us Yanks probably have more advanced tech kit then them.".... By Rick Posted Monday 14th April 2008 13:47 GMT
That is very encouraging, Rick, ....... Is it for Sale, or Pimped just for Exclusive Selfish Use? Next you'll be telling us that we own the country we are born in/swear allegiance to, and have to buy parts of it to call it our own, whenever it doesn't belong to anyone. It is not as if they made it, is it ...... although the Dutch can build you some new worlds, if you want to tempt them ...... http://articles.privateislandsonline.com/regional/the-world-dubai/
If it hasn't been man-made, such land grabbing is a perverse farce and a nice little dodgy earner/SAP/Scam though, which keeps some in clover doing Nothing worthwhile all of their Sad Apathetic Pathetic Lives.
Crikey, that appears to have wandered off on a Wanton Tangent Rant. I wonder if there is something in the drinking water?
@ all the replys
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdnmilitary/
http://www.wwiimemorial.com/
http://www.army.mil/index.html
http://www.comw.org/cmp/fulltext/iddschina.html
Armed Forces
Today: 62,000 military personnel including 9,500 sailors, 19,500 soldiers, 14,500 air force personnel and 20,000 administrative and support personnel. There are also about 22,000 reservists.
US As of April 2007, about 1,426,700 people are on active duty in the military with an additional 1,458,500 people in the seven reserve components.
In 2000, the total estimated personnel strength of the Chinese military was 2.5 million
Canada Second World War: More than one million served and approximately 45,000 died.
US 16 million who served in the armed forces of the U.S., the more than 400,000 who died
Second World War: At the end of the war, Canada had the third-largest fleet in the world, after the U.S. and the U.K. 23 Canadian ships were sunk by German U-Boats in the Battle of St. Lawrence alone.
First World War: During the course of the First World War, Canada's naval service grew to a force of 9,000 men and 100 ships.
Canadians on the front lines
Oh and none of your battle equipment is Canadian. So what are you cleaning up for us now??
Ha ha ha.
1) Rick posts a crap comment designed to insight annoyance in our cannuck breveren.
2) Rick get's flamed
3) Rick get's annoyed at flame; toys leave pram.
Settle down lads, none of it would have existed if we hadn't given you tv, radar, the jet engine, expresso makers.
maybe not the last one.....
I'm glad to see that Americans and Canadians are so much alike that we appear to each have an equal number of morons posting nationalistic drivel on these boards!
If it weren't for the $400M+ that taxpayers put into this thing and rules like ITAR that would likely prevent us from seeing it afterwards, the sale would be a non-issue.
Why don't you Class A Morons quit griping about who needs protection from whom and deal with the issue at hand: Canada has no defense, nor aerospace industry without american customers to whom we sell.
In the spirit of this discussion: my schlong is bigger than yours.
-Proud Canadian working in defense industry
As a long-time Canuck (born in Blighty, but came over at age 4), I am very happy that Canada has reacted this way. From what I can tell, a very large percentage of Canadians feel it quite important to keep Canada as separate and distinct as possible from the US. Many find the state of affairs down there to be quite distasteful, and want nothing to do with it.
Preventing this sale of the space part of MDA is probably a very popular move on the part of the government. Being politicians, they may have done it just because they thought it would be popular, but in a way that's OK too.
Long live an independent Canada!
Shouldn't that be Canada.gov.ca, seeing as the USA has appropriated for itself the entire .gov domain instead of using .gov.us
@Rick: yes, the US has more troops. Aren't a lot of them in Iraq right now, busy killing off civilians and creating the deep reserve of hatred that terrorists can mine for recruits for years? This after having lied and mislead every single one of their "allies" in an attempt to get them to go along on their illegal adventure. It is unfortunate that the UK was one of the more stupid nations. Then there's the contingent busy torturing 12 year olds (amongst others) in Guantanamo, Abu Grahib, and other places. Those two alone probably ties down a fair amount of your current resources.
As for the battle equipment not being Canadian: well, yes, because Americans were allowed to buy out the few Canadian companies that used to make the stuff, and the US lobbying has been rather intense to force Canada to buy American, rather than from other suppliers.
After the US government successfully pressured the Canadians to not only dismantle the Avro Arrow (most advanced fighter jet of its time) but destroy the plans (!!), there seems to be a certain lingering resentment against those and other US actions. Maybe that's why Canada doesn't want the US owning everything? After all, with allies like the US, Canada hardly needs enemies.
...a wholly owned subsidiary of the USA. Now that their dollar is actually worth something.
And they have some silly leaf on the flag. Give me nice wonderful stars and stripes.
Why can't I put TWO icons next to the message, my coat is the one with the Shark on it, not the one with the Flame on it. Oh, well.
It is not a spy-sat as such since it is pointed at our own country a lot of the time. It's unique all-weather viewing abilities are very useful to arctic surveillance among other things. Right now there is a kind of gold rush going on with every country under the sun claiming they own the arctic which is Canadian territory. So in order to keep the Canadian arctic Canadian, we have to show that we are defending it and enforcing our sovereignty over the land. Keeping day and night watch over a distant and desolate part of the world helps to enforce our claim on our own land. If we don't do this someone at the U.N. might decide to sign the arctic over to Russia one day. I don't think the U.S. would like that one bit more than we would.
Canada is just pissed because most all of their hockey teams have migrated south. Hell, if I were Canadian I'd be pissed, too. If curling or clubbing baby harp seals ever gains popularity in the US, they're screwed.
But seriously folks, this wreaks of a publicity stunt or political statement by some cranky Canadian officials. If it's a publicly traded company, the only people the Canadian government is screwing are the share holders of that company. Secondly, regardless of how the citizens of each country feel about about those of the other, we're supposed to be allies, no? (Translation: eh?)
And this is more of a generalized statement geared towards US, UK & Canada, but I find it rather disheartening, that given all of the crap our three countries have been through, in the past 100 or so years, we might have a little more respect for each other? With the exception of Australia & New Zealand, do you honestly think Central & South America or the whole of mainland Europe actually gives a shit about the rest of us? The "East" certainly doesn't, plus Africa has bigger issues to worry about... But hey, what do I know? According to you all, I'm just your typical "Imperialistic American" who doesn't give a shit about what goes on outside of my borders, eh?
"It is not a spy-sat as such since it is pointed at our own country a lot of the time."
That's like saying an assault rifle is not a weapon as such, since it sits in a gun rack a lot of the time. The key is that part of the time where it's not pointed at Canada. If you switch off the cameras every time it's pointed elsewhere, you may have a point.
If it is a spy satellite, it is poor one to have an official web page detailing it's tech specs, orbit and capabilities. It's a commercial satellite that was partly funded by the Canadian government because it fills a roll better than it's predecessor of watching our northern territory for us. It also sells commercial data to anyone who wants it. Because it is so good at what it does gives it some intelligence value which yes, the government wants to keep at home. It's not American bashing, we are on the same side here. I just don't see any government acting any differently if one of their valuable resources they put money in to and depend on for remote sensing was going to be bought by a foreign company.
Well done Canada it is a shame that the British Government haven't the BALLS to stop other nations buying some of our manufacturing companies. Come to think of it there is not much made here now even Rover is now Chinese. We don't Build ships now, Steel making is non existent, but we are good on the stock exchange and tele sales, no sorry they have gone to India, so come the big stock market crash the G8 are talking about we are buggered.
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