By now, most Canadians have heard that US weapons manufacturer Alliant Systems has made on offer to purchase MDA (MacDonald, Detwiler and Associates) and, with it, Canada’s highly successful Radarsat, builders of the Canadarm.

MDA was built largely with Canadian taxpayer money.

You can find a great summary of the situation at The Council of Canadians’ ACTION ALERT: Prentice Must Reject the sale of MDA to US Weapons Manufacturer web page.

Jim Prentice, Canada’s Industry Minister, was first introduced to the impact of the online community when Michael Geist launched the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group on December 1, 2007. That group grew to around 30,000 well-informed people in 10 days and was instrumental in convincing Minister Prentice to delay the introduction of copyright reforms to the House of Commons before the end of 2007.  Reforms have still not been introduced.

I see that there is a Facebook group called Keep Radarsat Canadian!  I have joined this group and I will be contacting my MP and Minister Prentice’s office to express my concerns.  I encourage you to do the same.