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Canadian Space Launch Act

2026-04-28 Sitting 112 Showing 21–25 of 25

A bill to establish a legislative framework for space launch and re-entry activities in Canada, including regulation-making powers, liability and indemnification, and emergency authorities for the Minister of Transport. During debate, Conservatives raised concerns about a lack of transparency and checks and balances in the bill, while Liberals focused on the potential economic benefits of the space industry.

Official Hansard ↗

Karim Bardeesy

Liberal 3:50 p.m.

“Canada can't launch rockets right now. This bill will let us send up satellites and astronauts ourselves. That's exciting. It could mean more jobs, investment, and training in the future.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague's question and his work. He represents an economic region where the aerospace and aviation sectors are very important and where we can train the students who are the future of these sectors. In exactly the way the hon. member described, in a continental context with our peers and with our partners that we do this essential work with, we have all the ingredients, except we lack the sovereign launch capability. This sovereign launch capability that we would be building through our sectors and through this legislation would attract yet more investment, yet more expertise and yet more excitement, and it is all part of the work we need to do to have sovereign launch.

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Ned Kuruc

Conservative 3:50 p.m.

“I don't like that. I want taxpayers to spend more money. More money for my program.”

Karim Bardeesy

Liberal 3:50 p.m.

“I want the government to spend money on space launch facilities. I think this will be good for the economy.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question, but I would advise that the demand for this kind of capability is exactly why we are responding with this legislation. Here is what Kepler had to say: “It is essential that Canada's sovereign launch capability is globally competitive so it can meet domestic Department of National Defence requirements while also serving global launch demands.” Eutelsat also relied on American firms and facilities to launch 20 satellites. It said that it “always welcomes the prospect of new entrants into the launcher market to increase the options for access to space.” It is the building up of supply that we are doing, in part through the legislation we are enabling here today, that enables the sovereign launch capability we have and also attracts new investment.

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Arnold Viersen

Conservative 3:50 p.m.

“I'm talking about a bunch of Liberal scandals to make them look bad. I don't want to spend money on this space launch pad.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member from Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park for sharing his time with me today. I am surprised the Liberals have chosen to bring up space exploration today, given the fact that over the last week, we have seen the concrete pad out in Nova Scotia. I am sure we have all seen the picture by now. I want to thank Marie Lumsden from the Hamilton Examiner for the great article that has given me the information for this speech here today. The Liberals are true to form. We have seen over and over again where they have worked very hard to enrich their friends. We have seen the clam scam. We have seen the ArriveCan app. We have seen the WE Charity scandal. We have seen the Chuck Rifici and the marijuana “pump and dump” schemes. We have seen the Brookfield stock go up over time. We have seen the green slush fund. We have seen the Randy Boissonnault scandal. We have seen this over and over again. In the fallout of the news being reported around this gravel driveway and a concrete pad out in Nova Scotia, and a government contract for $200 million, the government decides this is the week we should be talking about space exploration, or participation in space. I am excited that Canada participates in space. I remember growing up being super proud of the Canadarm. Does everyone remember the Canadarm? I remember being excited about that, going to the Edmonton Space and Science Centre, watching the spacewalk on the IMAX and things like that, and also about the International Space Station and our participation in that. The Liberals want us to talk about that today, about our Canadian participation, how we should be so proud that Canada participates in space and that we should have our own Cape Canaveral. What we saw in the news last week is no Cape Canaveral. It is a concrete pad. Now, I poured a bit of concrete last summer, and I can say that concrete is pretty expensive by the cubic metre. It was about $300 a cubic metre back home. I can imagine that is a pretty expensive place, and the company is paying $13,500 a year to lease the land that this pad is on. We know that. I would give them a generous amount. I have paid a few contractors in my time for concrete as well, so I will be generous with it. Let us say some Caterpillar work was done there and some gravel trucks came and brought some gravel. It cost maybe $1 million. I think that is a pretty generous amount. Everybody made some good money building that pad. The Canadian government could have done that. The Canadian government could have leased the land from the Nova Scotia government, spent $1 million and built the concrete pad. I think that would be an acceptable thing for us to have done, given that the Canadian government owns most of the airports in Canada. I do not know if everyone knows this, but most of the airports in Canada are owned by the Canadian government. Then private companies, generally not-for-profits, operate these places, and they pay the Canadian government for the operations. Members can imagine being flabbergasted that this has been brought up here, that we are paying for the privilege of being able to maybe one day use this concrete pad to launch a rocket somewhere. We are paying $20 million a year for the privilege of maybe being able to use that concrete pad. That is not all. The Liberals really know how to make their friends happy: by backdating this contract a whole year and paying them back an entire year. Marie Lumsden looked into some of the people involved. Lo and behold, a Liberal premier is on the board of directors of this company. Wow, look at that, Liberals feeding their friends. Members may think that is kind of interesting. There is a partnership. All of this was brought up by the partnership from—

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Arnold Viersen

Conservative 3:55 p.m.

“I was talking about space launch corruption. Marie Lumsden helped expose the directors of a corrupt company.”

What they said. What they meant.

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