MDA project to help farmers, governments and traders better gather agricultural information

Brian Morton
Sun

A Dnepr rocket (above) carrying a MDA-developed RapidEye satellite constellation launches from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome. Photograph by : Agence France-Presse; Getty Images

The satellite constellation (left) consists of five separate satellites. Photograph by : Agence France-Presse; Getty Images

All five will be released into a shared orbit at 630 km from Earth and circle the globe 15 times daily, transmitting back high-resolution images. Photograph by : Agence France-Presse; Getty Images

RapidEye, a $170-million satellite project developed over five years by Richmond-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, is the newest constellation in space, and it’s expected to help farmers, municipal governments and commodity traders get a better handle on everything from crop conditions to weather patterns.

MDA launched RapidEye, an array of five satellites each weighing 150 kilograms, from Kazakhstan on Friday in a move that’s expected to position the company to take advantage of the emerging “smallsat” (high-performance/low-cost satellites) market.

“We’re using this to demonstrate to the world how advanced our smallsat capabilities are,” Wade Larson, MDA’s director of business development for the satellite division, said in an interview Monday. “We believe this will place us at the forefront of this emerging business model.”

Friday’s launch from a converted Russian-built Dnepr — a space-launch vehicle previously used to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles — will enable the German firm RapidEye AG to supply agricultural information to clients around the world. The technology will be used not only for things like monitoring crop conditions, weather and natural disasters, but also for disaster management and cartography.

“It takes images of the land like Google Earth, [but] it’s much broader,” Larson said of the project. “It covers four million square kilometres a day and can revisit any spot on the earth each day. It can be used for crop yield predictions and damage assessment.”

Larson said RapidEye picks up “signatures of organic material and compares what you’re getting from week to week.”

He also said RapidEye will be helpful for providing information in poorly mapped areas.

“In western China, they’re dealing with maps that are decades old. In Afghanistan, they’re often relying on maps the British produced over a hundred years ago.”

Larson said the cameras take 78-kilometre-wide swaths of high-resolution images.

He likened the technology to a “caravan of satellites” that are evenly spaced out around the earth along the same orbital plane. They’re 19 minutes apart and each satellite takes images of a different piece of land, he added.

MDA hired three main subcontractors to implement the satellite constellation portion of the project.

“Our information solution demonstrates that lower cost small satellite technology can now be deployed operationally to support business plans that would otherwise not be economically viable,” MDA president and CEO Daniel Friedmann said in a statement.

Larson said there are other remote sensing satellites in use, but that MDA’s is unique in that it uses five cameras that can revisit any location on the earth each day.

As well, he added, other satellite systems tend to produce either high-resolution images in a narrow swath, or low resolution images in a very wide swath. RapidEye, he said, produces high resolution in a wide swath.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Restaurant, construction company bosses justify $240-billion underground economy

Don Butler
Sun

OTTAWA — A limited amount of tax evasion by otherwise honest business owners is justifiable, say people who run companies in the construction and restaurant sectors.

Their views are reported in a $133,000 study done for the Canada Revenue Agency that examined why workers in those two sectors are among the most frequent participants in Canada‘s multi-billion-dollar underground economy.

The study, held in February by Sage Research, is based on 20 focus groups with 163 owners and managers of small- and medium-sized construction and restaurant, bar or catering businesses. It offers a window into a thriving, but mostly uncharted, segment of the economy.

Results of the study found participants don’t have a black-and-white view of those who conceal income to avoid paying taxes.

Someone who evades a large amount of tax “is generally seen as committing a crime and deserving to be punished,” the study says.

But for smaller evaders, “some degree of evading tax is quite often seen as justifiable,” it reports. “Depending on the circumstances, these ‘small’ tax evaders were not seen as being ‘bad’ people.”

Concealing income may be acceptable, participants said, if done to keep a basically legitimate, but struggling, business afloat.

Many also justified cheating because they think small business pays too much tax, government wastes the money it collects anyway and small business people deserve compensation for working long hours.

“I spend 150 hours every two weeks at work, I’m tired and sometimes I don’t get a day off,” said one participant quoted in the study. “I deserve some extra money.”

Many also sympathized with wait staff who don’t declare tip income, noting they’re not paid very well and need all their tips to earn a reasonable living.

Some participants described tax evasion as a “victimless crime,” while others called practices such as paying employees “off the books” or doing cash jobs for customers as a “win-win” for both parties.

Estimates of the size of the underground economy vary widely, but a 2005 study by Lindsay Tedds of the University of Victoria put it at 15.3 per cent of gross domestic product. That equates to about $240 billion.

“That is our absolute best guess estimate,” Tedds said in an interview. “And it really is a guess.” The number includes money earned through illegal activities, which the CRA doesn’t count in its definition of the underground economy.

Tedds said the problem has been ignored for far too long. “I just don’t think it has captured the policy focus at higher levels that it should.”

The issue is important because those in the underground economy aren’t paying their fair share of the tax burden, she said. As a result, “we’re paying higher taxes than we should be otherwise.”

According to the study, paying short-term workers off the books — with none of the requisite paperwork or deductions — is quite common. Completing the paperwork for workers who last only a few weeks is time-consuming and costly, participants said.

Some who apply for jobs in the restaurant sector prefer to be paid off the books, many said.

They include people receiving government benefits, newcomers who don’t have legal working status, people with student loans, divorced or separated people who face alimony or child support payments and those with regular jobs looking to earn extra money.

As well, the study says, labour shortages can leave employers feeling they have no choice but to hire a worker off the books.

Participants said some bars and restaurants use two cash registers — one in the public area, where all sales are recorded, and one in the back, where only some sales are recorded.

In construction, the underground economy thrives in the home renovation market. According to the focus groups, that’s driven by a preference for cash payment by homeowners, who assume they’ll save money.

“They’re just trying to get the best deal,” said Tedds. “They don’t view it as being an illegal activity.”

The study says some in the home renovation sector work almost entirely underground, especially shift workers such as firefighters, police officers and teachers, who do construction work during their time off.

While the risk of getting caught is also a consideration, few focus group participants knew of businesses in their sector being prosecuted for tax-related underground economy activity in recent years.

Catherine Jolicoeur, spokeswoman for the CRA, said the study will help the agency inform and educate businesses about the “risks and consequences” of participating in the underground economy and to refine its strategies for addressing the problem.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008