NORAD overhaul will replace aging radar stations in Far North
Canada will spend $4.9 billion over the next six years to modernize continental defence, Defence Minister Anita Anand said Monday.
Anand delivered the long-awaited announcement on the NORAD upgrade at the Canadian military’s principal air base at Trenton, Ont.
“NORAD has continually adapted and evolved in response to new threats. Today, we turn another page and begin NORAD’s next chapter,” the minister said in front a backdrop of flags and an aging CF-18 jet fighter.
The figure represents Canada’s share of the cost of overhauling the decades-old joint bi-national air defence command, originally designed to watch out for Soviet bombers. The project was not part of the Liberal government’s 2017 defence policy document.
The United States covers about 60 per cent of the bill for NORAD.
The cash is expected to come out of the latest federal budget, which set aside up to $8 billion in new funding beyond increases in defence appropriations to which the Liberal government already had agreed. Up to $6 billion of that money was earmarked for a variety of commitments, including NORAD modernization.
Anand said the government’s overall investment in continental and northern defence will exceed $40 billion over the next two decades. She did not provide a breakdown of that spending and the Department of National Defence did not release a backgrounder explaining the proposed expenditure.
