Canada eyes airborne threats in new defence policy update

Strategy will take into account drones, ballistic, hypersonic missile attacks

Canada’s new commitment to bolster protections against the evolving threat of airborne attacks on North America includes an examination of how to defend the country from incoming ballistic missiles, according to Defence Minister Bill Blair.

The exercise is part of the government’s new, $73-billion defence policy update, which pledges Canada will make “further commitments to the integrated air and missile defence” of Canada and North America — an exercise that experts see as a response to emerging threats like faster and harder-to-shoot-down hypersonic missiles.

Careful to prevent speculation that the commitment would rekindle the years-old debate about Canada participating in American ballistic missile defence, officials who unveiled the defence update last week said the government has not changed its long-standing policy to refrain from hosting launch pads that can shoot down incoming projectiles as part of that U.S. system.

But in an interview with the Star, Blair said the new strategy will indeed consider ballistic missile defence in general, alongside a range of emerging threats that includes potential drone attacks and hypersonic missiles.

“It includes ballistic missile defence, but it’s broader,” Blair said of the government’s plan. “What we’re seeing is the emergence of new technologies and new missile threats.”

Asked whether Canada could acquire the capacity to shoot down ballistic missiles, which it has long refused to do, Blair said: “What we need to do is defend our country from any threat.”

A spokesperson for Blair later stressed that Canada’s policy on ballistic missile defence remains the same, but did not rule out the possibility that it could change as the government considers how to best improve the country’s defenc- es against airborne attacks.

As it stands, Canada can detect and release warnings about ballistic missile attacks on North America, but has left it to the U.S. to defend North America against such threats through its ground-based defence system that can shoot down these missiles, explained Andrea Char- ron, director of the Centre for De- fence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba.

To Charron, it makes sense to re- visit such questions at a time when rapidly advancing technology is pushing allies like the U.S. and NATO countries to look at how to make sure their air defence systems are able to protect people and their militaries against modern threats.

Such an attack was on dramatic display over the weekend, when Is- rael’s air defence systems shot down an onslaught of drones and missiles launched by Iran.

The debate over whether Canada should acquire the capacity to shoot down ballistic missiles as part of the U.S. system provoked warnings that it could undermine arms control efforts by encouraging the further development of missiles to evade defence systems or lead to the weaponization of space.