This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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The Harper government has made an official announcement confirming that it has decided to upgrade the satellite surveillance capacity of the search-and-rescue operations as part of a larger overhaul being revealed only few days after a spending watchdog warned the system is near breaking point. The Defence Minister, Peter MacKay, stated that a comprehensive review of Canada’s search-and-rescue capabilities has begun.
The announcement explained that the LEOSAR system, i.e. low-earth orbit search and rescue, which is currently being used by Canada will soon be upgraded and result in an improvement of detection abilities capability when the MEOSAR satellite, i.e. medium-altitude Earth orbit search and rescue system, i.e. comes on-line. The Conservatives are investing $11.5-million more in LEOSAR and will spend $4.7-million on MEOSAR. However, the government has not yet made the controversial announcement of choosing a new set of search-and-rescue aircrafts to replace Canada’s aging Buffalo SAR planes. The Conservatives initially promised to replace them in the 2005-2006 election campaign, which brought them to power.
In a recently released report, Auditor General, Michael Ferguson, stated that key elements of Canada’s search-and-rescue capabilities are approaching a ‘breaking point’ and need ‘urgent attention’ in case it is to carry on providing services to people in distress across the land. He highlighted that “significant improvements” are urgently required, while suggesting the government shall acquire new search-and-rescue aircraft, hire and train more personnel. The Auditor-General said that as things currently stand, the Canadian Forces and the Canadian Coast Guard have managed to “adequately respond” to the incidents that have come their way, but that the situation is extremely fragile.
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