Military drone installation to be built in Ottawa; exact location to remain secret

Ottawa will be home to a new $65-million installation used to control and operate the military’s future fleet of drones.

But National Defence says the exact location in the city for the new facility to accommodate 198 personnel, simulators and drone control systems must remain secret.

The Liberal government announced on Dec. 19 that Canada will buy 11 remotely piloted aircraft from a U.S. company in a project costing $2.5 billion.

The new drones will be stationed at 14 Wing Greenwood, N.S., and 19 Wing Comox, B.C., but they will be controlled and operated from a new installation to be built in Ottawa.

That location will be secret, National Defence confirmed in an email to Postmedia News.

“We are planning to construct the facility on existing DND land in Ottawa,” stated National Defence spokesperson Andrée-anne Poulin. “For operational security reasons, we will not be providing the exact location.”

That level of secrecy will put the new Royal Canadian Air Force facility on a whole different footing than other sensitive military installations in the country. Canada’s most secret defence-related organizations, the Joint Task Force Two counter-terrorism unit, and the electronic spy organization, the Communications Security Establishment, operate from locations in Ottawa that are openly acknowledged by the federal government and Canadian military.

Neither National Defence nor the Canadian Forces provided explanations on how they plan to keep secret the daily comings and goings of almost 200 military personnel.

The new Ottawa facility will be around 6,000 square metres in size and house six stations to control the drones as well as two simulators to support operations.

Work is currently underway in designing the facility and a contract for the modified design-build project was tendered and awarded to Bird Construction in May 2023.