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The Hill Times, the Ottawa based newspaper that covers all things politics, has published its annual Aerospace Briefing, along with a full page ad from the Don’t Let Go Canada Coalition.

The full page ad is on page 3 of today’s print edition. The ad, an open letter, is addressed to the Prime Minister, along with the Minister of Finance Bill Morneau and ISED Minister Navdeep Bains. It is signed by AIAC President and CEO Jim Quick, Unifor National President Jerry Dias, CATA Alliance President and CEO John Reid, Engineers Canada President Annette Bergeron, Western University President Amit Chakma, and SEDS-Canada President Roxy Fournier. You can read the letter below or download it here.

The letter opens by saying “Canada’s current leadership role in the global space sector and our potential involvement in the exciting new space economy­ – which is today worth over $500 billion and is growing fast – are at risk” and goes on from there.

The letter is just another in a series of measures the Coalition is taking to get their message across to decision makers. The public has also been seeing messages on buses in Ottawa and in movie theatres during the screening of First Man in select cities.

The Aerospace briefing

The full page ad was timed to be coincide with the annual Aerospace Briefing published by the Hill Times.

That section of today’s paper is available as a free download (PDF) from the Hill Times website.

Unlike many previous Aerospace Briefings in the paper, this one covers the space sector almost exclusively, there’s little aeronautics coverage.

The Briefing includes eight articles and two opinions. The opinions are from ISED Parliamentary Secretary David Lametti and Paul Meyer, a former Canadian diplomat, and founding member of the new Outer Space Institute at UBC. Meyer is also affiliated with the Simons Foundation and Simon Fraser University.

While the inclusion of an opinion piece by Lametti is welcome, it was, as you might expect, the usual message from someone in government today. In other words, rote, nothing new.

There’s also a Q&A with Minister Bains, unfortunately there was nothing new in his responses.

The Aerospace Briefing will primarily benefit those not involved in the space sector or regularly informed of what’s happening. Which is in part, the point.