This has got to help Magellan's prospects....
Saturday, June 17, 2000
U.S. gives Canadian defence industry special status back
Peter Morton
Financial Post
WASHINGTON - The United States has agreed to restore the special status of Canada's defence industry after threatening to impose new rules that could have hit up to $5-billion a year in contracts.
Lloyd Axworthy, the Foreign Affairs Minister, and Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, signed an agreement yesterday that restores about 80% of Canada's special exemption in getting sensitive U.S. defence contracts.
"We will continue to look at ways to broaden the exemption from where it was," Mr. Axworthy said.
Last May, the U.S. said it was ending a 60-year-old special exemption for Canadian defence contractors, many of which are subsidiaries of U.S. companies, after it learned that U.S. military hardware sold to Canada had ended up in Iranian and Chinese hands.
Ottawa insisted the shipments were unintentional and involved only outdated equipment, such as Second World War-vintage armoured carriers that were found in Iran. They were supposed to have been sold for scrap.
"In no way was [the United States] alleging Canada was loose or a sieve," said one Canadian official.
The new U.S. rules forced Canadian companies bidding on U.S. military contracts to get special export permits, something that effectively would have put them out of the bidding for the lucrative contracts.
To reinstate the special exemption, Ottawa agreed to rewrite its own export control rules on military technology to dovetail with the United States.
Legislation to do that was introduced this week in Parliament. |
