CSA John Manley, Industry Canada Minister and Minister responsible for the Canadian Space Agency, Bernard Landry, Quebec Deputy Premier and Minister of State for Finance and the Economy, Guy Chevrette, Quebec Minister of State for Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Regions, and Denise Carrier-Perreault, Quebec Minister responsible for Lands and Mines, today announced the launch of the Canada-Quebec Agreement on the Development of RADARSAT Data Applications. Under the agreement, $6.2 million will be invested in industrial projects and research activities in Quebec to encourage the use of RADARSAT satellite data. Of this amount, $4 million will be invested by the federal government and $2.2 million by the Quebec government.
This agreement will contribute to the development and promotion
of skills in Quebec's remote sensing products and services industry
and to the upgrading of radar remote sensing research skills in Quebec
universities. It will also promote the use of Earth observation data
by Quebec departments to meet their land management, natural resource
and environmental requirements.
An Agreement with Two Components
The objective of the agreement's first component is to provide
support for industrial projects involving the development or
demonstration of RADARSAT data applications. The objective of the
second component is to upgrade the research skills of Quebec's
post-secondary educational institutions and the training of research
students in the field of radar data applications. The second component
will be made possible through joint funding, with a contribution from
Quebec's researcher training and research assistance fund ( the Fonds
pour la Formation des Chercheurs et de l'Aide a la Recherche (FCAR).
The agreement will be administered by representatives of the
federal department of Industry, the Quebec department of Industry,
Trade, Science and Technology, the Quebec department of Natural
Resources, the Canadian Space Agency and the Canada Centre for Remote
Sensing.
According to federal Industry Minister Manley, "This agreement
will promote the development of new RADARSAT data users and
applications in Quebec. It is an excellent example of governments
setting up partnerships with industry and universities in order to
pool our expertise, enhance our reputation for excellence in the Earth
observation field and encourage the growth of our knowledge-based
industries."
According to Quebec Deputy Premier Landry, "The signing of this
agreement means that Quebec businesses in this sector will be able to
count on government support to implement worthwhile projects for the
departments and carve out a prime segment of the remote sensing
products and services market."
Denise Carrier-Perreault, Minister responsible for Lands and
Mines at the Quebec department of Natural Resources, explained, "This
agreement is an opportunity to use leading-edge technology to develop
the lands and natural resources on which the economies of many Quebec
regions are based. I am certain that several departments will be
interested in showcasing and providing test sites for the technology
and that the activities to be carried out will be an asset for
Quebec's strategy to promote geomatics industry exports."
RADARSAT, Canada's first Earth observation satellite, was
designed and built in Canada by a team of 30 Canadian companies under
the supervision of Spar Aerospace. Its synthetic aperture radar (SAR),
which can provide images of the Earth's surface under nighttime,
daytime and cloud conditions, gives Canada a dominant position in the
field of Earth observation technologies. Since its launch in November
1995, RADARSAT has already provided the first complete SAR coverage of
the Earth and is now associated with 55 distributors in 41 countries
who deliver the data products to about 400 users world wide.
An information session for industry and the research community is
scheduled for July 3, 1998, at the Centre de formation continue du
Pavillon La Laurentienne at the University of Laval (Sainte-Foy,
Quebec).
