New investments and policies will bolster resiliency in PNT infrastructure, while Canadians will have an opportunity to shape the nation’s first comprehensive space law
October 22, 2026 – Ottawa, Ontario
This week, at SpaceBound 2026, the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, launched consultations on a new Canadian space act, aimed at modernizing and streamlining Canada’s in-space regulations, and Canada’s first Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Resilience Framework. As the world becomes increasingly complex, dangerous and unpredictable, with growing competition in space and shifting geopolitical dynamics, the Government of Canada is taking the necessary steps to modernize Canada’s space regulatory frameworks, strengthen our national security and safeguard Canada’s interests.
Building on the Canadian Space Launch Act introduced in 2026 to enable commercial space launch, a space act would aim to establish a modern and comprehensive regulatory framework for Canadian activities in outer space, supporting Canada’s continued leadership as a responsible spacefaring nation and helping Canadian companies compete on the global stage. Canadians can help shape the space act through public consultations this fall.
Minister Joly also announced the release of Canada’s first PNT Resilience Framework, which aims to bolster the resiliency of vital space infrastructure that is fundamental to building a strong, sovereign and secure Canada, for Canadians.
The framework reflects a modern, coordinated approach by governments, industry and researchers to diversify Canada’s PNT sources, strengthen sovereign dual-use PNT capabilities, drive investment and innovation, and improve awareness and preparedness.
The new framework enables initiatives that will do the following:
Diversify Canada’s PNT sources: Recognizing the importance of advancing multiple sources of PNT such as space- and terrestrial-based technologies, sensors and emerging PNT technologies
Strengthen sovereign dual-use PNT capabilities: Reflecting the role of domestic companies and technology development to support Canadian civilian and defence requirements
Foster investment and innovation: Highlighting the importance of the right conditions to support companies developing and deploying dual-use PNT technology
Improve awareness and preparedness: Reinforcing that resilience is strengthened by fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing and best practices
PNT underpins nearly every aspect of our digital and physical infrastructure, and the new framework will help support and protect critical services, northern and remote operations, and Canada’s long-term competitiveness.
By modernizing Canada’s space regulatory framework and strengthening the resilience of critical dual-use PNT infrastructure, our government is safeguarding Canada’s sovereignty, strengthening our national security and ensuring Canadian businesses and innovators are positioned to succeed in an increasingly competitive global space sector.
Quotes
“Building a strong Canada means supporting the industries that underpin our economic and national security. These initiatives will bring governments, world-leading space companies and innovators together to seize emerging economic opportunities and strengthen our position as a global leader in space. Our government is building a strong, resilient space sector that advances Canada’s economic security, space capabilities and national interests and will continue to do so for decades to come.”
The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions
“Whether it’s to defend our sovereignty in the Arctic or operate alongside our allies, the Canadian Armed Forces depend on reliable positioning, navigation and timing systems. As threats evolve, strengthening the resilience of these critical capabilities is essential to our national security. This new framework will help advance Canadian-made, dual-use technologies, strengthen our defence readiness, and ensure the women and men who serve Canada can depend on the tools they need to carry out their missions.”
The Honourable David McGuinty, Minister of National Defence
Quick facts
In 2024, Canada’s space industry contributed $3.8 billion to Canada’s economy and supported more than 28,000 jobs across Canada.
PNT technologies and systems provide the information we need to understand where we are (positioning), to determine how to get where we need to go (navigation) and to synchronize networks, or time-stamp (timing). An example of PNT systems that many Canadians rely on daily is global navigation satellite systems, such as the global positioning system (GPS) and Galileo.
These everyday uses for PNT systems are diverse and critical. They include phone-based navigation and ride-sharing, payment processing and fraud prevention, first responder dispatch and communications, and power grid operations.
Noah Note: Ooooh boy. They're ginna get me going in this one. I love how they mention the framework, but don't mention the ten areas of focus here. I feel that's an important thing missing, considering how simple the framework really is. It isn't a forty page document here
I have been waiting for a PNT framework, anything for a long while now. It is such a critical area that we have allowed to degrade and lose capacity in, all while our allies are commited to investment and expanding their own capabilities to persist in a GPS/Galileo-denied future.
Anywho, I'm gonna put it instead, so you can see for yourself:
Establish a National PNT Office: Designate a centre of excellence in ISED to lead policy development, domestic and international engagement and civil-defence coordination, ensuring a unified approach to cross-sectoral PNT resilience in Canada.
Strengthen National Preparedness: Develop a coordinated approach to respond effectively to GNSS disruptions for the continuity of critical federal operations.
Increase Situational Awareness: Improve detection and early-warning capabilities of GNSS interference and manipulation, both cyber and physical, so that users can make operational decisions.
Improve Critical Infrastructure Risk Management: Provide guidance and promote practices that strengthen the resilience of critical infrastructure systems that rely on PNT.
Build Secure National Sovereign Time Infrastructure: Establish a national sovereign timing backbone and regional access for critical users to support timing-dependent digital systems.
Expand National Sovereign Geodetic Infrastructure: Bolster national geodetic infrastructure and capabilities underpinning PNT users and systems.
Develop Dual-Use Space-Based PNT Capabilities: Foster emerging space-based and other non-terrestrial PNT capabilities that complement or provide alternatives to GNSS, improve PNT coverage and performance, including in Arctic regions, and enhance resistance to jamming and spoofing.
Develop Dual-Use Terrestrial PNT Capabilities: Diversify PNT sources with ground-based PNT systems, including for maritime navigation.
Grow Dual-Use Sensor Fusion PNT Capabilities: Accelerate the development of next-generation PNT capabilities, including quantum sensing and navigation, for performance in complex environments.
Test and Validate Performance against Jamming and Spoofing: Facilitate open-air jamming and spoofing test-range capabilities to validate PNT equipment resilience under real-world conditions.
The list itself is not bad, don't get me wrong. That isn't what the issue is for me, at this moment. Truthfully, this is just a slightly less commited version of where the UKs Government Policy Framework for Greater Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Resilience, which while lacking when first released in 2023 has moved into a proper executable, with very similar areas of concern being undertaken by both.
That isn't always a bad thing mind you. Lots of strategies look similar between governments, and target similar areas of investment. This is a bit closer than that, down to similar placemwnt of things. Both put a national office first and crisis planning second, and both house that office in an industry or science department.
Both use similar terminology as well for that office, which is a bit strange considering we have a PNT board that has been running since 2011, one ISED runs the coordination office for, which is also strangely excluded from this framework, as are other partners like NRCan and Transport Canada.
Does this new office replace the existing one? Build off it? Exist as another layer? The framework does not say. Instead, such things.are left up for future discussions it seems, or at least future for all of us watching. Outside of these two, Canada does almost everything the UK does but with less enthusiasm, no commitments, and a lack of future planning.
Canada commits to ground-based PNT including maritime? The UK puts both money and a plan in place to fund a proper ELoran system, where they've committed £71 million to begin developing a proper terrestrial-based system by 2029. Meanwhile, Canada ended Loran-C with the US in 2010, and the Coast Guard shut DGPS in December 2022 as space-based infrastructure was seen as significant enough to replace it.
Timing is also an area where there is a notable gap, and a much more recent example of working against our own framework. In June, NRC shut down CHU, the shortwave station that had broadcast Canada's official time for more than a century. Four months later, the framework promises a national sovereign timing backbone without naming NRC or UTC(NRC), Canada's own time standard. The UK named its own National Physical Laboratory and UTC(NPL) back in 2023. In March of this year it announced £180 million in funding for a new National Timing Centre program to deliver a resilient timing signal as well.
Canada's most concrete step so far is the work we've done with Xona to broadcast UTC(NRC) from Xona's Pulsar satellites, which as of the other day that relationship has now been expanded with dedicsted funding to build the Mission Control/Operation infrastructure to operate from Canadian soil.
It's also, and as pointed out I forgot to mention before, the same system Xona pitches for carrying UK and US time as well. It's a reasonable measure, and as I said before I do welcome it, but it isn't a national system as commited. It is the framework of one that still needs commitment to actually buikding that functional network, esepcially when discussing lack of Arctic coverage.
To be fair also, Canada's version does do a few things the UK didn't do in its original plan. It sets the Arctic and our geography a core area of focus within the framework itself, and calls for identifying where PNT is degraded or denied instead of treating the country as one uniform concept. It makes interference detection its own seperate, dedicated category from the start. The Government Policy Framework for Greater Position, Navigation and Timing Resilience didn't give it its own attention, only funded a £13 million monitoring program two years after its framework came out.
Our PNT Framework also calls for open-air jamming and spoofing test ranges, which the UK left to a generic statement about standards and testing, and it takes spoofing seriously, something that continues to be pished oftentime to the second in many discussions over outright jamming.
The UK's framework included infrastructure resilience measures, including the roll out of resilient GNSS receiver chips, develop holdover clocks so systems keep time when the signal drops, and consider legislation requiring critical infrastructure sectors to meet a minimum level of PNT resilience.
To be fair, the UK hasn't passed that law, but the inclusions of it at the least set the stage to begin discussing and setting minimum standards for how industry support PNT resiliency and sets the mandate to expand upon in.
Sadly, there is a lacking on the defence side of things. The UKs plan included MOD Time as a core concept. The MoD has put £6 million into a deployable eLoran system for contested areas, due by April 2028. Our framework talks about civil-defence coordination and the benefits of duel-use infrastructure several times, but never names the CAF or DND directly, nor does it set out what the CAF needs.
Infact the CAF-specific discussions are almost nonexistent despite things like the Air Navigation Aid System Replacement (AirNAS) project, which aims to acquire new TACAN, VORTAC and NDB ground navaids at RCAF main operating bases, forward operating locations and en-route sites, being a prime example of building resiliency in a PNT-denied enviornment.
There is no cost details, no analysis on cost in the Canadian Framework as there was attached alongside the UKs framework. There is just a general… lack… of details and depth around it. It feels like we took the UK frsmework, built on what they learned, but didn't put the effort to make actual plans or commitments. As it stands, it is a barebones document for a concept with nothing really behind it.
That in itself again might be more on me than them. The UK plan expanded a lot after their framework was release, and had similar criticisms, but with so much focus on National Defence, how long this has been in develooment, and the fact we have had a PNT structure in place since 2011? I expected a lot more than what feels like a revamped version of the 2023 UK framework with less commitment.
Maybe I am wrong, I hope I am, and we execute on this, but these feels more like a guideline and not the true form of a national strategy, especially if our plan is to build resiliency not through our own infrastructure, but a collection of private infrastructure and supports meant to build something resembking a coherent national network.
I guess time will tell. We'll see how things turn out. There are good steps, and it isn't a bad framework. I just wished for a lot more.
Our very own Jeremy Hansen was also appointed to the government to advise on new space strategy. He will advise the PM and industry Minister Joly.
Just thinking of who are the experts, the ones most using space with dedicated space and PNT personnel. CSA and CAF/RCAF/3SPACEDIV. There should be some ref to them as well, in a framework document.