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OTTAWA–Canadian success story, Research In Motion, issued a dramatic call for Ottawa to step in and reopen the contest for some of Nortel’s prized technology assets

Mike Lazaridis, co-chief executive of Waterloo, Ont.-based RIM, urged Ottawa to consider restructuring the sale of Nortel assets to avoid the loss to foreign control of technology he called "a national treasure."

Allowing Nortel’s next-generation wireless patents to go to a foreign-based company would be similar to Canada’s notorious decision to cancel development of the Avro Arrow aircraft in 1959, he told MPs.

Lazaridis testified during a day of hearings by the Commons industry committee to examine the transfer of assets owned by Nortel Networks Corp. to Swedish telecom giant Ericsson for $1.13 billion (U.S.).

He was followed by an Ericsson executive who told the committee its purchase of the Nortel assets would boost Canadian presence in the wireless technology industry and prevent job losses.

"It will assist Ericsson to keep Canada at the forefront of technological development with respect to next-generation wireless technologies," Mark Henderson, president and chief executive of Ericsson Canada, testified.

Henderson said the transaction would help the federal government fulfill its "goal of attracting direct foreign investment in order to increase Canada’s productivity," but also took time to describe how the company has already had a presence in Canada since it began its operations here in 1953.

Henderson said the company has invested more than $2 billion in Canadian research and development during the past decade and employs 1,900 people nationwide who have contributed over 330 patents to Ericsson in the past 25 years.

"Once acquisition is complete, we will employ approximately 800 more people in Canada," Henderson said no teletrack payday loan.

Those would be employees currently with Nortel, he said.

The hearings were held as the Wall Street Journal reported Mike Zafirovski, Nortel’s chief executive, plans to leave the company soon. Nortel declined to comment.

Lazaridis, whose company makes the BlackBerry, said Industry Minister Tony Clement should throw out the usual process and meet with Nortel, Ericsson and RIM to re-think the sale to ensure Canada’s interests are protected.

"It’s important that the government at least take due care to make sure that we are not giving these assets away in a way that would be unfavourable towards Canada or its industry," he told reporters.

But Lazaridis told the committee that, before Nortel went broke, RIM had been in talks with Nortel to buy some of the its technology. RIM was caught off-guard when Nortel went into bankruptcy proceedings in January. "We were snookered," he told MPs.

He said Nortel effectively blocked RIM from the auction process by throwing up "non-disclosure" conditions in the auction process – a condition RIM could not live with.

George Riedel, chief strategy officer of Nortel, said all companies that wanted to bid in the bankruptcy auction were allowed to do so.

Riedel defended the sale of key technology assets to Ericsson as "a good deal for Canada."

There is no reason why the deal needs to be vetted by the federal government under the Investment Canada Act, he commented.

Riedel also said that, prior to Nortel’s bankruptcy, the Harper government declined to bail out the one-time Canadian technology champion.

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