Canada will spend $40B over 20 years to upgrade NORAD defences amid ‘new threats’
Global News
Defence Minister Anita Anand unveiled major new details to spend $4.9 billion over the next six years, with tens of billions more to come on NORAD upgrades.
Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand unveiled major new details of a $4.9-billion plan to upgrade Canada’s NORAD continental defence systems amid what she described as “new threats” from autocratic regimes and new weapons being developed by other countries.
The $4.9 billion will be spent over the coming six years but the funding is part of a longer-term plan that will see the government spend $40 billion over the next 20 years to beef up continental defence.
“More than six decades ago, against the backdrop of the Cold War and the threat of a Soviet-era air attack, Canada and the United States established the world’s only binational military command,” Anand said, describing a “pressing need” to respond to threats like hypersonic and cruise missiles.
“NORAD has continually adapted and evolved in responses to new threats. Today, we turn another page and begin NORAD’s next chapter.”
Anand said there are new threats emerging on a “seemingly monthly” basis.
She spoke with reporters from CFB Trenton to make the announcement on Monday, but the details of specific spending commitments were not provided to media. Anand said the precise breakdown of how the money will be spent is being finalized, and said it will focus on five specific areas.
Those will include a new northern approaches surveillance system, an Arctic over-the-horizon radar system for early warning radar coverage from the Canada-U.S. border to the Arctic Circle, as well as a polar over-the-horizon radar system to provide early radar coverage.
A new system called “Crossbow” will also see early warning sensors deployed across the country to identify incoming threats, and the modernization of NORAD will also launch a space-based surveillance project to use satellites to probe for threats approaching from around the world.
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