Canada's Secret War Exports

RADARSAT Surveillance Satellites

Aug 3, 2006 Daniel Workman

Over $1 billion in Canadian taxes have paid for advanced satellite technology used in military actions around the world...

The RADARSAT family of satellites is Canada's single-most important technological export to war efforts led principally by the U.S.

RADARSAT-1 was created by the Canadian Space Agency and is the first in a family of advanced Earth-observation satellites. The satellite's sensors use microwaves to produce earth images even when the planet is obscured by darkness, clouds, dust storms or the most adverse weather conditions. Of course RADARSAT-1 has many commercial applications such as mapping, tropical storm monitoring and offshore oil and gas exploring.

Canadian taxpayers paid for about 90% of RADARSAT-1's C$620 million cost.

Few of those taxpayers are aware that RADARSAT-1 data is used for military intelligence. Canadian satellite "eyes in the sky" enable armed forces to inspect the terrain features, airfields, ports and harbors of battle areas before making military decisions. Another example is detecting and monitoring warships on the oceans.

NASA launched the Canadian observation satellite in 1995. Since then the American government has controlled 15 percent of RADARSAT-1's observation time. Furthermore, the U.S. has full access to all archived RADARSAT data more than 6 months old.

American federal agencies also pay extra subscription fees like the US$3.4 million paid in late July for RADARSAT-1 data to monitor locations around the world for 12 months.

Intelligence has been used in combat zones including Yugoslovia, Columbia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Since early 2003 the U.S. has deployed Eagle Vision ground stations in Iraq that directly control RADARSAT-1 operations and downlink its data for surveillance and reconnaissance operations against the enemy.

And there's a new, more sophisticated Canadian space satellite in town. McDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) is the private Canadian company that owns and controls RADARSAT-2 which will be launched in March 2007. Canadian taxes fund about 83% of RADARSAT-2's C$525 million pricetag.

NATO and U.S. warfighters are counting the hours before they can add RADARSAT-2's space-based radar system to their arsenals, particularly its Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) capability. GMTI is being groomed for use in gathering target data for first-strike attacks during missile defense engagements.

And The Winners Are...

RADARSAT data has been a strategic tool for foreign militaries and intelligence operations. In particular the American Navy, Air Force, Army and various spy agencies have been among users of information from Canada's publicly-funded satellite.

Canada has also contributed data from its unique RADARSAT satellites to a special NATO coalition force of 9 countries. The growing coalition force includes France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, U.K. and U.S.

Canada's secret military exports means that the federal government has deeply engaged Canada in military trade without the public knowing. As then-U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci said in early 2003: "Ironically, the Canadians indirectly provide more support for us in Iraq than most of the 46 countries that are fully supporting us."

Sources: www.mdacorporation.com, www.sedar.com, and with permission from Press for Conversion! of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT); The Propeace Community Site

The copyright of the article Canada's Secret War Exports in International Trade is owned by Daniel Workman. Permission to republish Canada's Secret War Exports in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.