* Review says Canada losing business to other NATO countries
* Urges Ottawa to market the industry more aggressively
* Canada’s aerospace sector is fifth biggest in world
* Planemaker Bombardier is most prominent player
By Nicole Mordant
Nov 29 (Reuters) – Canada’s aerospace industry is not
selling as much as it could in countries such as Russia and
China because of overly zealous government enforcement of
controls designed to guard against leaks of sensitive
technology, an industry review released on Thursday says.
Companies in other North Atlantic Treaty Organization
countries, which have more “balanced” controls, are picking up
the slack, the report said.
The controls are designed to protect national security and
to preserve Canada’s unique trade relationship with the United
States, but evidence suggests the Canadian government’s
interpretation and application of the controls “may be unduly
sweeping and rigid, even going further, in some instances, than
is typical in Washington”.
“The result is lost business for Canada with no material
enhancement of security,” said the independent,
government-mandated review, which looked into the
competitiveness of Canada’s aerospace and space industries.
It urged Ottawa to review its rules to see whether they are
unnecessarily restrictive.
The country’s aerospace sector is the fifth biggest in the
world, and is dominated by Montreal-based Bombardier Inc
, which is the world’s No. 3 civil aircraft
manufacturer. Bombardier has struggled to find customers for its
all-new, narrow-body C-Series jet, which is set for its first
flight by the middle of 2013.
Other prominent Canadian aerospace companies include flight
simulator manufacturer CAE Inc and Heroux-Devtek
, a maker of landing gear systems.
The review, which was chaired by David Emerson, a former
federal minister of trade, industry and foreign affairs, also
urged Canada’s Conservative government to be more aggressive in
opening doors for the aerospace industry in foreign markets.
“Canada, almost culturally, has been reticent to engage in
aggressive ‘diplomacy’ of this kind,” the review said.
“Companies indicate that other governments have taken notice
of Canada’s relatively passive approach and have sometimes
interpreted it as a lack of enthusiasm for, and commitment to,
Canadian products.”
Industry Minister Christian Paradis welcomed the report
saying the government is “committed to helping the sector grow
and add to the nearly 160,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs
the industry supports”.
The Aerospace Industries Association of Canada said in a
statement that the review recognized the “critical juncture the
aerospace and space industry is facing, and the urgent need for
government, industry, academia and unions to adapt to a rapidly
changing and highly competitive global environment”.
