For the most part, it is a rather bland listing dealing with the minutiae of running government.
On Oct. 6, however, an interesting one popped up. Essentially, it gave Defence Minister Peter MacKay permission to spend up to $477 million to ensure Canada's involvement in a new, U.S.-led military satellite program.
It's unclear how long the government had been negotiating to get on board, but this order-in-council posting was the first public indication of how close a deal really was.
The Global Wideband Satellite program, or Mercury Global, is interesting for a number of reasons.
First, Boeing, the company in charge of developing it, says it is for "warfighters."
The idea is to place satellites in set locations all over the world so U.S. and allied soldiers operating overseas will have access to top-quality, secure wide-band communications.
The Conservative government's intention to spend up to half-a-billion dollars to sign Canada onto the program is a sign it sees Canadian soldiers continuing to be deployed to hot spots around the globe.
At the same time, the program has been plagued with problems.
The first three satellites are up and running, but only after delays. Further delays have slowed the deployment of six others.
In addition, the initial cost estimate was $1.3 billion for six satellites. So far, however, the U.S. has invested $4.9 billion on three satellites, with the entire nine-satellite network expected to cost $10 billion.
The government hadn't been planning to announce a deal until after the ink was dry. This and the amount of money involved, makes it, in my opinion, an important story to watch into the new year.
Original Article
Source: Canada.com
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