Nano2Sol by Marc Boucher

Citing a lack of “net benefit” to Canada it appears, according to the Globe and Mail, that the Canadian Government has rejected the sale of MDA to ATK, for now. And while this is a move I agree with as stated in my earlier posting, I am a little surprised. The Canadian government has never rejected a takeover since the Investment Canada Act went into affect in 1989.

So what does this mean for the deal? Well, Industry Minister Jim Prentice has given ATK 30 days to make its case that the deal should go through. I don’t think they can make a case that it would be a “net benefit” for Canada. Radarsat2 is a national security space asset that Canadians paid for and should remain in Canada’s control. And while there are jobs at stake, perhaps this case has shown the government that investing in space is important to Canada’s interests and that they should try to revive an industry that has been neglected for some time.

It’s been almost two months since Alliant Techsystems (ATK) announced they would acquire MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) space division. In that span there’s been a lot of discussion in Ottawa about the ramifications of the deal and in particular the access to data from Radarsat2 which was just launched this past December 14th.

There’s even been talk of having the federal government not approving the deal and just yesterday the NDP, one of the opposition parties in parliament, threatened to seek legal action to stop the deal.

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