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OTTAWA – The Harper government has approved funding for Canada’s world-beating surveillance satellite program, just as it seemed that it may become the victim of spending cutbacks.

Sources say the Prime Minister intervened personally to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding to move the next generation of Radarsat satellites off the drawing board and into production. A public announcement of the funding deal is expected soon.

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Stephen Harper has lauded Radarsat — a series of satellites monitoring Canadian territory from space — in his annual visits to the Arctic, saying they can “pick up a breaching whale through the fog … so we will be able to see what the bad guys are up to.”

But the future of Radarsat was in doubt when the 2012 federal budget did not include new funding to cover the 50% increase in costs from the original price-tag of $600-million for the three new Constellation satellites.