Ottawa, ON – It’s been a heady year for Canadian space businesses. The US wants its defence partners to increase NATO and NORAD spending, while the Americans also are pursuing tariffs and protectionist economic policies that make it more difficult for international companies to grow there. Europe, which is pursuing sovereign launch and programs and is more open to international collaborations, is emerging as a stronger strategic partner for Canada.
Meanwhile, the Canadian federal budget released (and passed) this month includes $182.6 million for sovereign space launch capability – but Canadian companies are asking for a fresh space strategy to address the changing market conditions.
At the Space Canada SpaceBound conference in Ottawa today (Nov. 18), four Canadian companies (or companies with Canadian presences) took stock of where we are now and how Canadian government department agency and department budgets can help support the new space situation. Representatives from Honeywell, MDA Space, Telesat and Terrestar Solutions all weighed in on a panel asking what economic opportunities we can find today – and there were five suggestions the firms made.
Spend big, but spend strategically. It was no surprise to hear that companies like Telesat (represented by CEO Dan Goldberg) and MDA Space (represented by CEO Mike Greenley) are calling for investments in global communications and launch. Their companies are spending on and/or aiming to provide these services (see MDA Space’s $10 million investment in Maritime Launch Services announced this month as an example.) Also the global market is growing quickly in both. But launch serves as an example where Canada preferred to lean on international partnerships instead of growing sovereign capabilities over the decades, and now the country is among the world players watching SpaceX launch satellites several times a week. Greenley pointed out consistency of rhetoric in the government will help with international pitches; that said, he and others said it also comes down to spending. The panellists encouraged Canadian government to provide substantial amounts of money to the Canadian space and defence related portfolios, so that Canadian companies could in turn benefit from support as the Americans do.
Look to the population’s needs. While it’s almost cliché now to say that remote areas in Canada – such as Arctic communities – will benefit from fresh and faster satellite services like Telesat Lightspeed (in which both MDA and Telesat have stakes), American and European companies are already making big moves in that area as well to serve Africa, Latin America and other global locations that rely on cell phone access. Jacques Leduc, CEO of Terrestar Solutions, said his company strives to “build for the general population needs, and then have an economic benefit that we can serve” – like seeking uses for other entities looking to operate in that area, such as the military.
Perform ‘economic diplomacy.’ Assuming that Canada is prepared to make bigger plays in space in the next decade and beyond, Goldberg suggested that we look to our American neighbours to learn more about how they perform “economic diplomacy” by going to international trading partners and presenting opportunities from their large firms, such as SpaceX. This may already be taking place, however: Marina Mississian, Honeywell’s senior director of global space systems, said she is hoping for a whole-of-government approach for key priorities and partnerships, and the panel also noted this may already be starting to happen with Global Affairs Canada’s strategic export office.
Reopen the National Space Council. We also heard during the panel, however, a frequent request from industry in Canada to finally reactivate the National Space Council to help with space strategy, as was promised in 2024 – something we’ve written about at SpaceQ extensively over the years. As we pointed out last week, the last space strategy was released in 2019 and we haven’t heard much new since. To be sure, a new defense industrial strategy is forthcoming and we know from the federal budget (as well as discussions with government representatives) that space will be represented. But something recent, focused on space, and representative of both the current changes under the Trump administration and the space economy, is something that industry would appreciate so that they know where to spend money, where to hire and how to plan out the multi-decade programs that space requires.
Continue to do what Canada does well. A theme of the companies’ discussion was confidence – confidence in their products, confidence that the Canadian market will spend generously on those products, and confidence that those products have lots of room to grow even with changes in international space spending. Telecommunications, space medicine, robotics and dual-use satellite technologies are just some examples where Canadian space-related government agencies and departments have been spending what dollars they could for many decades, providing industry with a measure of support. But as already mentioned, what industry is looking for is more European-style or American-style direct government support to grow more efficiently and make it easier to pitch these products internationally – where companies can get even larger growth at economies of scale beyond the 40 million or so people who live in our country.