Published – Richmond Review – January 18, 2008

Canada’s shrinking space program has taken two more body blows under Harper’s right wing Conservatives. Harper, not known for his knowledge of technology issues in general, is having trouble looking past his narrow-minded, pulpit driven, theocon ideology to find a role for Canada in space. This month we lost our much-vaunted Canada-Arm, and just last week the newly appointed head of what’s left of our Canadian Space Agency. After just nine months on the job as President, Laurier Boisvert has resigned amid speculation he may have quit over the planned sale of Richmond’s MDA to Alliant Techsystems of Minneapolis – a U.S. armanents manufacturer.
Within shorts months of the Conservatives taking office, Harper torpedoed our participation in the European Space Agency’s Mars surface rover program while stating he had yet to make up his mind about Canada’s future role in space. It seems he has made up his mind now. With the loss of the Canada-Arm we lose much of what’s left of our technological edge in the field of space robotics. The message is now clear to Canadian scientists; there is only a limited future role for Canada in space, and there is little or no role for space scientists in Canada. Meanwhile, obviously out of touch with his political master, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was speaking this week in Calgary about Ottawa looking for ways to ensure that Canada “keeps its best and brightest.” We are indeed headed back to the dark ages.