{"id":201453,"date":"2025-10-10T01:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T01:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201453\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T01:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T01:01:07","slug":"canada-should-seek-central-role-for-norad-in-golden-dome-or-risk-marginalization-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201453\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada should seek central role for NORAD in Golden Dome or risk marginalization, expert says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Posters for the proposed Golden Dome in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, on May 12.Mark Schiefelbein\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Canada and the North American military command it shares with the United States risk being marginalized if Ottawa fails to ensure a commanding role for NORAD in Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> proposed Golden Dome missile-defence project, a Commons committee heard Thursday.<\/p>\n

This week, the President announced that the United States was working with Canada on the project to combine all the U.S.\u2019s existing missile defences and expand them, including with interceptors in outer space, to better counter ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles.<\/p>\n

Defence Minister David McGuinty later told a Toronto audience that he prefers to call it a \u201ccontinental shield\u201d and that Ottawa and Washington are still working out how such a defensive system would function within existing bilateral arrangements. <\/p>\n

Canada has already pledged $40-billion over two decades to modernize the North American Aerospace Defence Command, whose mission includes detecting airborne threats.<\/p>\n

Mr. McGuinty said Canada has set aside a policy against working with the Americans on ballistic-missile defence that was established in 2005 under the former Paul Martin government. <\/p>\n

McGuinty defends Canada\u2019s Golden Dome collaboration with U.S., citing potential threats<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to the Commons defence committee Thursday, James Fergusson, a professor emeritus and senior research fellow with the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, said Canada needs to \u201cstep forward\u201d in discussions with the object of making NORAD the \u201ccommand authority\u201d for this integrated air and missile-defence plan. <\/p>\n

He warned against Canada thinking everything is \u201cone and done\u201d by contributing to NORAD modernization, which includes new radars and sensors.<\/p>\n

Canada must talk with the United States about contributing to the entire range of missile-defence requirements and negotiate expanded terms of reference in the NORAD agreement that outline the roles, responsibilities and missions of the joint Canada-U.S. command, Prof. Fergusson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do otherwise \u2013 and there is no guarantee of success \u2013 especially without a meaningful contribution, NORAD will be marginalized, kept in a box or operationally subordinate to a U.S. command with the hypersonic and ballistic-missile defence of Canada ceded to the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Canada has been working for years to prepare for Golden Dome, Air Force general says<\/a><\/p>\n

In an interview after his testimony, Prof. Fergusson said NORAD will need a bigger role in the new arrangement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the United States moves forward with Golden Dome, which is integrating all the layers from drones up to ballistic missiles together, we cannot just sit in one little pocket and think that wouldn\u2019t have any significance at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the President has assigned this to U.S. Space Command, and they\u2019re going to be the central operating authority for now \u2013 who knows how it will play in the future \u2013 so we need to contribute, to break those doors down, so we find out what\u2019s going on and what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prof. Fergusson said it\u2019s likely that Canada will have to spend more than just the NORAD modernization commitment as a contribution to Golden Dome. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be more,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has previously said it would cost Canada US$61-billion to join the Golden Dome although, he has added, the country could obtain this protection for free if it agreed to be annexed as the 51st state.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration projected a cost of approximately US$175-billion over three years to develop and deploy Golden Dome. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimated a range of US$161-billion to US$542-billion over 20 years.<\/p>\n

Participating in Golden Dome would mean deeper defence ties between Canada and the United States: a different direction than Mr. Carney suggested when he campaigned in the spring election on more distance from Washington, saying the \u201cold relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Posters for the proposed Golden Dome in the Roosevelt Room at the White…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-201453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}