I am pleased to rise today to inform my honourable colleagues that Mr. Haseen Khan, and Dr Amir Ali Khan, water resources managers with the Department of Environment and Conservation, are participating in a European Space Agency TIGER Project from April 28 to May 9 in Egypt. They are joined by Mr. Thomas Puestow, C-CORE senior manager.

Mr. Haseen Khan has worked in the department over 15 years and has managed a number of water resources programs. He visited Russia in 1998 and Egypt last year as a part of Canadian delegation on environmental governance capacity building. In February, he travelled to Belgium on an invitation from NATO under its Science for Peace Project.

Dr. Amir Ali Khan joined the department in 2000 and has been heavily involved in the application of geographic information system and remote sensing in water resources management. He has presented information about the Badger River ice monitoring service in England and Italy, and visited Egypt last December as a part of a NATO Science for Peace Project.

Both gentlemen are recipients of the Public Service Award of Excellence.

Mr. Thomas Puestow has worked on a number of international projects in the area of satellite monitoring. His company, C-CORE, is a Newfoundland and Labrador corporation that provides worldwide innovative engineering services. It focuses on commercial research and development to increase operational efficiency and safety while reducing costs. C-CORE�s investment in developing satellite surveillance expertise is placing Newfoundland and Labrador at the centre of several significant international programs.

These three gentlemen will undertake field work, offer training courses to Egyptian participants, and share expertise in the application of satellite technology for water resources management in Africa. This is a water resources capacity building project with the main objective to design, develop and implement an earth observation-based capacity for the operational monitoring of water quality in Lake Manzalah, Egypt. Lakes are a precious source of freshwater in Egypt, and the use of lake water must be carefully managed to satisfy a variety of different, and often competing, domestic, agricultural and industrial uses.

The invitation to participate in a European Space Agency Tiger Project highlights the strong expertise in this department and is another illustration of government�s success in using innovative technologies. I am confident these individuals will provide valuable information and represent our department and province well.

2007 04 30                                              1:50 p.m.