Canada will spend $ 4.9 billion over the next six years to modernize continental defense, Defense Minister Anita Anand said Monday.
Anand made the long-awaited announcement of the upgrade of NORAD at the Canadian Army’s main air base in Trenton, Ontario.
The figure represents Canada’s share of the cost of overhauling the decades-old binational joint air defense command, which was originally designed to monitor Soviet bombers. The project was not part of the 2017 Liberal government defense policy document.
The United States covers about 60% of the NORAD bill.
Defense Chief of Staff Wayne Eyre watches Defense Minister Anita Anand address a press conference on April 25, 2022 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press)
The nature of NORAD has changed in recent years as it has taken on additional responsibilities to monitor sealane approaches in North America and protect itself from cyberattacks.
The revision of NORAD will include the replacement of the northern warning system, a chain of radar stations at the northern end. The system will eventually be replaced by two different types of radar systems, one northern and one polar, which have the ability to look above the horizon.
The review will also deploy new satellites built to track ground-moving targets and a series of top-secret remote sensors.
The new network will monitor not only the Arctic, NORAD’s traditional domain, but also the Pacific and Atlantic approaches to the continent.
Military experts have long warned that NORAD’s current surveillance system is not built to track cruise missiles: weapons fired from submarines or from outside American airspace. Nor is it configured to deal with hypersonic missiles, which travel at many times the speed of sound.
Both weapons systems have played a prominent role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The environment of the threat has changed,” Anand said, answering a journalist’s question on Monday.