The Government of Canada, with new Prime Minister Mark Carney, announced Tuesday (March 18) that it will work with Australia to create over-the-horizon radar technology designed to perform surveillance of areas in an around Canada’s north.
The project, valued at $6 billion in funding, will be based in southern Ontario and is part of Canada’s long-standing efforts to modernize its NORAD systems. Called Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar, the project “will provide advanced early warning and long-range surveillance, enabling faster CAF [Canadian Armed Forces] detection and tracking of a wide range of threats in our northern air and maritime approaches, while strengthening NORAD domain awareness in the defence of Canada and North America,” government officials stated in a release.
Industry groups in Australia will work alongside their equivalents in Canada “to build expertise and capacity in Canada, grow our domestic defence industry, support high-paying Canadian jobs, and help Canada scale up its own radar system,” the release added, while work with the United States will remain ongoing “to ensure the interoperability of domain awareness solutions for the defence of North America.”
The government also announced $420 million in funding to increase CAF personnel and presence in the Arctic, as well as $253 million in infrastructure investments in Nunavut such as power plants, housing and hydroelectricity.
The project is part of Canada’s push to maintain sovereignty in the Arctic. In recent months, the Trump administration has threatened to make our country the 51st state, which observers say is in large part due to critical minerals being present in locations such as northern Ontario. The NORAD modernization, however, far predates these developments and has always been framed as a collaboration alongside the Americans. Media reports also suggest this new funding would count toward Canada’s pledge to spend two per cent of GDP on defence, similar to other NATO members.
In 2022, the Canadian government announced it would spend $4.9 billion on modernization for the first six years of the modernization project, and $38.6 billion over 20 years on an accrual basis. Back then, investments were said to target areas such as “new radar stations, command and control upgrades, additional air-to-air refueling aircraft, advanced air-to-air missiles for fighter jets, upgrades to Canadian Armed Forces’ infrastructure in the north, and additional funding to complete and augment key space projects.” Many of these projects are expected to be initially capable of functioning in the 2030s.
Australia’s involvement has also been ongoing for some time. In November 2024, representatives from both countries released a joint statement concerning collaboration about missile defence, which is important as China and Russia work on hypersonic weapons.
“As potential adversaries continue to develop more advanced missiles, including advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons that combine high speed, increasing range, and manoeuvrability, new solutions are required to defeat these threats,” a statement at the time noted.
Canada and Australia pledged then to work together on research and development “in support of next generation defensive solutions to defeat these threats”, with work expected to include research trials on potential advanced missile technologies. Each partner was expected to contribute half of the $474 million value of the collaboration, which will include both cash and in-kind contributions.
NORAD modernization was top of mind during hearings last year at House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence. While Canada pledged it would activate a National Space Council (NSC) quickly for strategic direction on space defence and other national space activities, companies expressed frustration with how some current contract processes were going.
One hearing in May 2024, for example, saw business witnesses discuss issues with relatively low spending on space activities compared to Western allies, a high barrier to clearing security requirements, and (prior to NSC’s establishment) a lack of strategic direction. Representatives came from several large Canadian companies or industry groups, including MDA Space, Telesat, Space Canada, NorthStar Earth and Space and Maritime Launch Services.
Over-the-horizon radar was discussed last spring, shortly after multiple Chinese surveillance balloons were spotted drifting over North America. NORAD’s Lieut. Gen. Blaise Frawley told the committee in April 2024 that NORAD’s newer over-the-horizon radar, then slated to be ready around 2026, would be able to track these balloons further off shore.
