Since the beginning of the Space Age, Canada has worked hand-in-hand with the United States to push the boundaries of exploration. The landing struts on Apollo 11 were built by a Quebec-based aerospace company. Canadarm was instrumental to NASA’s Space Shuttle missions, including the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. Its successor, Canadarm2, continues the legacy aboard the International Space Station, where it has been used on nearly every mission since its installation by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in 2001. A Canadian-built laser discovered snow on Mars aboard NASA’s Phoenix lander, and a Canadian infrared camera is helping us understand the evolution of the universe aboard the James Webb Space Telescope.
But in today’s political climate, we must ask: What does space mean for Canada now? What should our priorities be, and how can they serve all Canadians?
Earlier this month, Donald Trump released his FY26 budget, which calls for cancelling both the Lunar Gateway space station and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Canada was set to contribute its third Canadarm to Gateway, with a planned $1 billion investment over several years. That’s more than double the Canadian Space Agency’s entire FY24–25 budget. We’re also heavily invested in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon in the next few years. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is slated to fly on the next Artemis mission, but that mission now faces an uncertain future. The proposed replacement for SLS, SpaceX’s Starship, is nowhere near ready for crewed flight.
By placing so many of our eggs in a single foreign basket, we’ve missed the chance to truly invest in a vibrant homegrown space ecosystem.
For decades, when space was prohibitively expensive, Canada relied on international partnerships. We needed to “hitch a ride” with NASA. In the last decade however, the landscape has completely shifted. Since SpaceX’s first reusable booster landing in 2015, the cost of access to space has dropped dramatically. The development of smaller, cheaper satellites have in turn fuelled the rise of smaller, cheaper rockets to launch them. Space is now easily within reach of Canadian-level budgets. Yet, our government has been slow to adapt to the new technologies and approaches available to it.
Meanwhile, Trump is leading a broad assault on science south of the border. Research agencies like NASA, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation are facing drastic cuts, undermining both space science and critical climate research. This dismantling of climate science creates an opening for Canada: We are the world’s second-largest Arctic nation. With the Arctic warming at twice the global rate, we are disproportionately feeling the effects of climate change. It has already impacted Inuit communities, harmed vital ecosystems, and poses national security risks as once-frozen waterways thaw. According to Global Forest Watch, in 2023 alone, 7.8 million hectares of Canada’s forest area burned in unprecedented wildfires. The impact of climate change on Canadians is undeniable.
It is clear that Canada should be a world leader in space technology, Earth observation, and climate science from space.
We’re already generating the talent. Times Higher Education ranked Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria among the top five universities globally for climate action this year. The University of Toronto’s Space Flight Lab is world-renowned for its satellites that are of such high quality, commercial companies have outsourced construction to them. The U.S. News & World Report 2025 rankings place the University of Toronto, McGill University, and the University of British Columbia in the global top 100 for both space and environmental sciences.
While the space industry in Canada is growing, job opportunities are still limited, and the lure of higher salaries and exciting, fast-paced projects in the U.S. is hard for many to pass up. The Canadian space sector is also quite isolated, with relatively limited awareness outside of Canada of what companies exist here and what they do—even within the space industry. On the scientific research side, faculty positions in space-related fields in Canada are extremely limited relative to the number of PhDs graduating from Canadian universities, meaning many graduates have to look abroad for employment. In government, French language requirements often automatically exclude people who otherwise hold strong technical credentials from roles with the Canadian Space Agency, meaning those who are not bilingual in French and English have to look elsewhere for work.
We’re haemorrhaging the talent coming out of Canadian universities.
Government investment in some of this personnel while in university is also lost in this process. In the lab group in which I did my Ph.D. at Western University for example, three students (myself included) received the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship — Canada’s most prestigious doctoral award. All three of us ended up getting jobs in the U.S. immediately after graduation. That’s $1.3 million in Canadian government investment lost to the U.S., and that’s just from one lab at one university. Government research funding opportunities in Canada often emphasize the generation of “highly qualified personnel” (HQP) as a success metric. If we lose those HQP upon graduation, is that still a success?
Canada is producing technically skilled graduates with a passion to work in space. Let’s build a dynamic space sector that entices them to innovate here. We need a galvanizing, cohesive, cross-agency strategy to create an independent vision for Canada’s future in space. Today, multiple government agencies utilize space to protect Canadians. By creating dual use technologies and shared requirements across these agencies, Canada can concentrate both funding and brainpower to foster a stronger space sector that addresses a broad range of government, commercial, and scientific research goals.
This doesn’t mean abandoning international collaboration. Space has long been a realm where nations work together in ways not always possible on Earth. But in this new space age where Earth orbit and beyond are increasingly within reach, we must rethink old paradigms. Now is the moment to invest in a bold cross-sector space strategy for the future of all Canadians, where Canada can set its own priorities and steer its own course.
Dr. Tanya Harrison is a strategy consultant who bridges worlds across the space ecosystem, having worked in NASA Mars mission operations, led science initiatives at multiple Earth observation companies, and was the Director of Research for Arizona State University’s NewSpace Initiative. She holds a Ph.D. in Geology from Western University and lives in Ottawa.
Submit an opinion: SpaceQ is committed to publishing our community’s perspectives. Whether you’re an academic, executive, engineer or citizen, send your viewpoints to [email protected] to be considered for publication online. Perspectives shared in these op-eds are solely those of the authors.
