Europe’s space industry just got more maple-syrup moolah.
Canada will 10x its investment in ESA programs to CDN $528.5M ($377M), boosting the northern country’s cooperation agreement that lets it sit on the agency’s governing council. The announcement comes amid a whole-of-Canada business pivot due to US tariffs, which backdropped the Canadian federal election this spring.
“We’re putting our money where our mouth is, and making the right investment,” Mélanie Joly, the Canadian government minister whose portfolio includes CSA, said during the livestreamed announcement late Tuesday at Space Canada’s SpaceBound conference in Ottawa.
Canuck cash: The US is Canada’s biggest trading partner, and remains so. But there’s been angst in space industry circles about tariffs, and for good reason: In 2022, about CDN $2B ($1.4B) of business came from exports—that’s 40% of the market, the CSA says.
Because of this, Joly said trade diversification is a must: “We can’t be naive, and we need to make sure we’re being able to look at other partners.” The goal is to help Canada get through “economic turbulence we may be experiencing because of the trade tensions” with the US.
Big bucks: Following the funding announcement, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) released a research paper Wednesday afternoon that includes a blueprint for how the nation can “build and finance a bolder space strategy.” The paper—authored by former NASA chief economist Alex MacDonald, and current RBC SVP John Stackhouse—said Canada has a chance to quadruple its space economy to $1.8T by 2035.
But to make that prediction a reality, Canada must craft a new space strategy focusing on sovereignty, defense, technology, commercialization, and climate, the authors argue. Canada must also tackle big-picture hurdles, like procurement modernization and building the talent pool, to fully capitalize on the opportunities offered by the space economy.
“Unfortunately, too much of Canada’s space ambition rests on past achievements and not enough on future commitments,” the paper says. “Our private space sector is also nowhere near what Canada could support.”
Across the ocean: Money has been flowing between ESA and Canada for about five decades, but a sum of this size is “historic”, the government says. The new funds should ship in the next three to five years, Reuters said in a story quoting a government source.
ESA will decide where to put the money at its next Ministerial Council in Bremen, Germany on Nov. 26 and 27. Canada, meanwhile, hopes to see space companies sell dual-use technology in high-value areas like satcom, quantum tech, EO, PNT and SSA to European customers.
Recent beneficiaries of ESA support include:
- Canadarm and robotics maker MDA Space, which also drew interest from the Europeans on the strength of its novel space antennas.
- Kepler Communications, selected as the first Canadian company to lead an ESA satellite mission—HYDRon-DS, or High Throughput Optical Network Demonstration System—aiming to link satellites not by radio, but with swifter optical comms.
