Mark Smith

Water sustains us and shapes our planet’s future. On World Water Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to conserve every drop of water and use it responsibly. Today is also a day to appreciate those who engage in sustainable practices, promote awareness and nurture a culture of conservation.

Under the government spin and propaganda for national defence and sovereignty, they picked a company whose CEO is, ironically, an immigrant. The largest shareholder and member of the board has an IIROC judgment against them. In 2017, he was fined $100,000 and $10,000 in costs, plus a three-year suspension, as the ultimate designated person for supervisory compliance failures at Jacob Securities, which were admitted in the settlement. Jacob then registered with the federal registry as a consultant and as a board member. In March 2025, he published “Why Canada Needs Its Own Spaceport” on The Hub and his own website, explicitly urging Ottawa to back Maritime Launch in Nova Scotia. Read it today - it sounds almost word-for-word like the March 2026 McGuinty announcement. Coincidence, I’m sure. Not to be overlooked, the Strategic Advisory Board includes the former Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil. The province owns the land, and Maritime Launch leases it for an annual rent of $13,500. The province has authorized nearly $31 million in infrastructure support for the site, and now Ottawa is layering on $200 million more, leasing the space for $20 million a year. That’s quite the spread. This isn’t a true public-private partnership where private capital competes, proves viability on merit, shares real risk and lets the best operator win. This is Ottawa picking this player as the “sovereign” winner, becoming their anchor tenant, and providing guaranteed cash flow while the early insiders ride a huge wave. As of Maritime Launch’s September 30, 2025, MD&A, the company said it had six full-time employees. It also stated: “At September 30, 2025, the Company has insufficient sources of operating cash flows to meet its ongoing needs.” The same filing showed a $20.0 million working capital deficiency and stated that the company’s ability to continue as a going concern depended on obtaining additional financing. In plain language, its survival depended on raising more money. Using a rough RTO-era benchmark of about $0.14, and the latest public common-share counts I could find, Jacob and Matier held about 192.3M shares combined. At the time of the 2022 RTO, those two men together held just over 50% of the stock. After the contract news, the stock moved from about $0.445 on March 13 to $0.63 on March 16. On those disclosed holdings, that was about $35.6M in combined paper gains in that window. Using that same rough $0.14 benchmark versus $0.63, their combined holdings went from about $26.9M to about $121.2M, a paper increase of roughly $94.2M. Exact insider cost bases are not public. It’s such a good thing that the Canadian government (taxpayers) was able to step in with $200 million just in time.