Donald Trump says Canada has asked to join the missile-defence program his administration is building, adding a new chapter to a long-running cross-border saga.

The U.S. president dropped that news in the Oval Office on Tuesday as he unveiled the initial plans for a three-year, $175 billion US project to build a multi-purpose missile shield he's calling the Golden Dome.

"Canada has called us and they want to be a part of it," Trump said. "They want to hook in and they want to be a part of it."

Canada will pay its "fair share," he added. "We'll work with them on pricing."

Ottawa confirmed it's talking to the U.S. about this but added a caveat. In a statement, the federal government cast missile-defence discussions as unresolved and as part of the overall trade and security negotiations Prime Minister Mark Carney is having with Trump. 

What this means is still extremely murky. It's unclear what, exactly, Canada would contribute; what its responsibilities would include; what it would pay; and how different this arrangement would be from what Canada already does under the Canada-U.S. NORAD system.

Refused to join

Canada has long participated in tracking North American skies through NORAD, and feeds that data into the U.S. missile-defence program.

But Canada never officially joined the U.S. missile program, which was a source of controversy in Ottawa in the early 2000s when Prime Minister Paul Martin's government refused to join.

That previous refusal means Canadians can monitor the skies but not participate in any decision about when to launch a hypothetical strike against incoming objects.

New developments have forced the long-dormant issue back onto the agenda. 

For starters, the U.S. is creating a new system to track various types of missiles — one more sophisticated and multi-layered than Israel's Iron Dome, intended to detect intercontinental, hypersonic and shorter-range cruise weapons. 

And this happens to be occurring as Canada's sensors in the Arctic are aging out of use. Canada has committed to refurbishing those sensors.

 

Trump says Canada asked to join U.S. missile-defence program

 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled the initial plans for a three-year, $175-billion US project to build a multi-purpose missile shield he's calling the Golden Dome. He said Canada has asked to join the missile-defence program and that the country will pay its 'fair share.' There was no immediate comment from Ottawa.

Rumblings of Canada's interest started months ago

The first public indication that these combined factors were fuelling a policy shift in Canada came in public comments made earlier this year in Washington.

One U.S. senator said, in February, that he'd heard interest in the missile program from a Canadian colleague, then-defence minister Bill Blair.

Blair publicly acknowledged the interest, saying that, given the upgrades being planned by both the U.S. and Canada, the partnership "makes sense."

But the form of Canadian participation is, again, unclear. The U.S. commander for NORAD appeared recently to suggest that Canada's participation will be limited to tracking threats.

One missile-defence analyst says it sounds like an extension of existing Canada-U.S. co-operation through NORAD. Still, says Wes Rumbaugh, it's interesting that Trump chose to draw attention to it. Trump mentioned Canada's role several times, unprompted, during his announcement Tuesday.

People watch as a missile is test-fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on May 30, 2017. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

As for the president's three-year timeframe, Rumbaugh calls it a long shot. He predicts that only part of the system could be built in that period, and that it will take more years, and more funding, to complete.

It could take much, much more funding. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this project could cost hundreds of billions more than the $175 billion US figure cited by the president. 

"This is still a significant challenge," said Rumbaugh, a fellow in the missile defence project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington.

"We're talking about sort of a next-generation and a widely enhanced missile-defence system. We're talking about a step-change evolution in American air and missile defence systems that will require significant investment over potentially a long time period."

Canada confirms Golden Dome discussions

Nearly three hours after Trump's announcement, Ottawa confirmed the discussions are happening. An evening statement from Carney's office said Canadians gave the prime minister an electoral mandate to negotiate a comprehensive new security and economic relationship with the U.S.

"To that end, the prime minister and his ministers are having wide-ranging and constructive discussions with their American counterparts," said the statement. 

"These discussions naturally include strengthening NORAD and related initiatives such as the Golden Dome."

A Canadian cabinet minister involved in similar discussions in the early 2000s says it's high time the conversation resumed. 

"I see this as a positive," said David Pratt, a Liberal defence minister in the first Martin cabinet. 

He favoured Canada's participation in a North American missile defence system back then but says the government blanched out of fear of political blowback, with its minority government fragile. 

He said the refusal to join came with a cost. In part, NORAD lost part of its potential vocation, as missile interception became a U.S.-only activity, and related research and manufacturing opportunities flowed to the U.S., he said. 

The specific U.S. ask of Canada was never fully defined back then, he said. Pratt recalls negotiations having just gotten underway about what role Canada would play and whether it would merely host sensors or also interceptors on its soil.

"I'm hoping we'll see NORAD assume what should have been its rightful role," he told CBC News. 

Pressure is mounting on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to fire Jenni Byrne, his national campaign manager, whom critics hold responsible for the party's election defeat last month, sources told Radio-Canada.

"After a loss, heads have to roll," said one Conservative. 

"If Jenni Byrne stays, we won't be able to support Pierre," a second added. 

"If there's no change between now and January, the caucus will lose patience," said a third.

Discontent within the Conservative ranks continues to grow three weeks after the Liberals won a fourth term in government, sources said. Many Conservatives are directly blaming Byrne, the campaign architect and Poilievre's confidante, for the loss.

"There's only one head that needs to roll, and that's Jenni's. You don't realize how she treats everyone like garbage," one Conservative source said.

Many Conservatives are directly blaming Jenni Byrne, the architect of the Conservative campaign, for the party's federal election loss. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Radio-Canada spoke with 12 Conservative sources for this story. They were granted confidentiality to discuss internal party matters.

Some complain of Byrne's "toxic and angry" behaviour at campaign headquarters. Others deplore her lack of communication with teams in the field. Still others feel it's her fault that Poilievre's campaign message did not adjust enough in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats.

Her detractors point out that she ran the Conservative campaign when Stephen Harper lost to Justin Trudeau in 2015. In their view, it's because of her that relations are strained between Poilievre and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

"When she spent too much time with Stephen Harper, she brought out his bad side,"  a Conservative source said. "She has the same effect on Pierre Poilievre. She is responsible for his negative tone. Everything is a war for her."

Byrne and the Conservative Party did not respond to requests for comment. The Leader of the Opposition's office declined to comment.

In Byrne's defence

Some Conservatives, however, are keen to defend Byrne and credit her for the gains the party made in the election.

The Conservative party won 143 seats, its highest number since Stephen Harper's majority win in 2011. And the party won more than 41 per cent of the popular vote, its highest percentage since Brian Mulroney in 1988.

A campaign strategy aimed at winning the union and blue-collar vote in working-class areas, and the ethnic and cultural vote in Toronto's suburbs, helped limit the Liberals to a minority, these Conservatives loyal to Byrne say.

At the start of the first Conservative caucus meeting on May 5, the party's first since the election loss, Poilievre seemed to reject the idea of firing Byrne when asked about her.

"Excluding people is never the way to expand a team," the Conservative leader told reporters before the meeting.

But within that same post-election caucus meeting, which lasted for eight hours, MPs raised the question of Byrne's departure.

"It was done respectfully and without aggression," another Conservative source said. The discussion "didn't last too long either. The boss knows very well that it's an irritant," the source added.

But the Conservative troops still don't know what fate Poilievre has in store for his campaign manager. 

A convention ahead of schedule?

Recent news that the Conservative convention, scheduled for next spring in Ottawa, could instead take place as early as this autumn in Alberta is rekindling the pressure. 

Earlier this month, Conservative MPs voted in favour of the Reform Act, which gives them the power to hold a vote of no confidence in the leader at any time. Holding the party's convention this fall, with a vote of confidence put to the entire Conservative base, is seen by some as an attempt to bypass any such caucus efforts.

 

Poilievre speaks to reporters for the first time since election seat loss

 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, speaking from Parliament Hill on Tuesday as he was walking to meet with his caucus, is asked what he has learned from the election, which left him without a seat in the House of Commons.

"Pierre Poilievre wants to settle the question of his leadership by a vote of the members as soon as possible to get rid of this distraction and not give his detractors time to organize," a Conservative source said.

"If members decide to give Pierre their vote of confidence at the convention, it becomes much more difficult for MPs to justify a vote of no confidence afterwards," another source said. "How could MPs then go against the wishes of the rank and file?"

The Conservative party executive is due to meet on June 14 to discuss the date and location of the national conference.

Fatigue among the troops

The caucus, said a Conservative source, is exhausted after three acrimonious leadership races and four general elections in 10 years.

"Fatigue has taken over," said the source.  "Everyone's just tired of fighting."

The more conciliatory tone Poilievre adopted since election night, and the fact that the leader lost his seat and will have to win a by-election in Alberta to return to the Commons in a few months' time, has seemed to help cool down the dissatisfaction.

"No one seems ready to make this their hill to die on. If Jenni can acknowledge to key people in the caucus that she has learned from her mistakes, it could help her survive," a Conservative source said.

"We'll see where things go," confided a Conservative recently. "We'll give Pierre the summer to get elected and think things over. We'll see in the fall."

Despite the fatigue and the internal debates, the desire to see Byrne go remains among a good part of the Conservative movement, according to several sources.

"Jenni is a bully who operates on threats. Many MPs are either afraid of her or hate her," one Conservative said.

"If Jenni stays, it means they don't get it," said a different source. 

"Pierre needs to change his negative personality and kick Jenni out," another Conservative said. "Otherwise, it's the caucus that's going to kick the leader out."