Canada and Australia signed a A$2.5 billion agreement Sunday for BAE Systems Australia to supply Canada with Over-the-Horizon Radar technology capable of detecting aircraft, ships, and missiles up to 3,000 kilometres away — giving Ottawa long-range surveillance across the Arctic without placing a single station north of the tree line.
Canada’s Secretary of State for Defence Procurement Stephen Fuhr signed the agreement in Canberra with Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles.
The deal is Australia’s largest-ever defence export and its first overseas sale of Over-the-Horizon Radar technology, an adaptation of the Jindalee Operational Radar Network Australia uses to monitor its own vast northern approaches. Unlike conventional radar, which requires line-of-sight positioning, OTHR works by bouncing high-frequency radio waves off the ionosphere and back to Earth’s surface thousands of kilometers away.
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Ground stations for the system will sit in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region, with radar coverage extending across the Arctic Archipelago.
Canada has allocated more than $6 billion for the broader program, with the system slated to go live in December 2029. Fuhr described it as part of a wider effort to “monitor, understand and respond to activity in the Arctic.”
Under an accompanying industrial benefits agreement, BAE Systems Australia will partner with Canadian firms to develop local radar expertise; the project is projected to support 2,270 jobs per year in Canada through 2033.
The radar purchase falls under Canada’s NORAD modernization effort — a 20-year, $38.6 billion program launched in 2022. Canada’s allies are watching the Arctic more closely. So is the United States — though with different methods.
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the deal a “significant milestone in Australian defence trade” and described it as the foundation for deeper bilateral defence collaboration.
