William “Mac” Evans on the creation of the Canadian Space Agency

Uploaded on November 24, 2021

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William “Mac” Evans on the creation of the Canadian Space Agency

2021-11-24 - William "Mac" Evans, Former CSA President discusses the creation of the Canadian Space Agency. (Credit: Canadian Space Agency)

William "Mac" Evans: There had been at the same time a push from the industries – the space industries in Canada, and a push from our international partners – for Canada to have a space agency.

And so MOSST, Ministry of State for Science and Technology, was asked to prepare a proposal to the government for the creation of a Canadian Space Agency. And so we did this and we submitted to the government, and in 1986 they announced that they would create a Canadian Space Agency, which was formally approved and with all the legislation and royal assent in 1989.

So the Space Agency came out of what was seen by the government as a major space program – Space Station – the interest of our industry and the interest of our international partners saying we, Canada, you need to have a space agency where there is one place where people can go and find out what Canada is doing in space. One place where they can go to develop cooperative programs. The one authority in Canada for space. And so that happened in 1989.

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