Head of Canadian Space Agency Leaves Post After Nine Months on the Job

MONTREAL – The Canadian Space Agency has a new interim president after Laurier Boisvert recently left the post just nine months into the job.

Guy Bujold, an assistant deputy minister at Industry Canada, will run the agency on an interim basis until a new full-time president is found. The director of communications for Industry Minister Jim Prentice said Wednesday that Boisvert left for personal reasons.

"It’s unfortunate, but that was his decision and I’ll leave it there," Bill Rodgers told The Canadian Press.

"He left for personal reasons and that’s all I can tell you."

Boisvert, a former president and CEO of Telesat Canada, was appointed to the space agency’s top job last April 12.

He was officially replaced by Bujold this past Jan. 1, but the resignation was communicated to CSA staff on Dec. 20.

There has been speculation Boisvert may have quit over the planned sale of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.,a Vancouver-based company known as MDA, to Alliant Techsystems (NYSE:ATK) of Minneapolis.

MDA is the company that built the Canadarm, which has been used for years for robotic work on the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

Rodgers pointed out the acquisition would still have to be reviewed on both sides of the border.

"It has to be approved under the Investment Canada Act and there’s a similar process in the United States as well," he added.

Former astronaut Marc Garneau, Boisvert’s predecessor as CSA head, said he has no idea why his successor left the agency.

But he expressed concern about the proposed transfer of MDA to an American company.

"I think it needs to be looked at very carefully by the government," Garneau said in an interview.

MDA and the Canadian Space Agency were also partners in the construction of the RADARSAT-2 satellite.

The surveillance satellite was launched into space from Russia last Dec. 14, about a week before Boisvert resigned.

It is to be used for environmental monitoring as well as ice mapping and marine surveillance.

Garneau, a Liberal candidate in the next federal election, said RADARSAT-2 was also built to ensure the surveillance of Canadian territory.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made Canadian Arctic sovereignty a priority for his government.

"MDA was going to provide that and I don’t know what happens in this particular situation where it is now being transferred to an American firm company," Garneau said.

"I understand the motivation of the company. They’re businessmen but at the same time I have to say that it’s a sad day for Canada."

The former astronaut said he did not want to compare the move to the Avro Arrow project.

The Avro Arrow was a supersonic, all-weather interceptor jet scrapped in 1959 by John Diefenbaker’s Conservative government.

"But the Avro Arrow was also an opportunity that was missed by Canada to keep its own capability," Garneau noted.

"It is important that we look at the strategic role that space will play increasingly in the decades to come and that should be a factor in deciding whether we’re prepared to give up our space industry.