Canada and the European Union will open negotiations on Canadian access to Galileo, the EU’s satellite navigation system, the two sides said Friday in a joint statement from their summit in Montreal, and will start exploratory talks on cooperating on IRIS², the EU’s planned secure-communications constellation.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced what they called an “Alliance for the Future” at the close of the two-day summit. Most of it covers defence procurement, critical minerals, digital trade and research. On space, the partners say in the joint statement that they will “expand cooperation on space, in particular on secure connectivity,” and deepen work on Earth observation.
A backgrounder released with the statement says Canada will formalize a geodetic partnership with Galileo’s High Accuracy Service. Geodesy is the science of measuring Earth’s shape and pinning down exact positions on it, and the government says the partnership will extend advanced positioning across the country, including the Arctic. The service itself is already free to anyone with a compatible receiver. It has broadcast corrections that sharpen a position to about 20 centimetres since January 2023, according to the EU Agency for the Space Programme.
The Canadian Press reported the Galileo talks Oct. 15 from a draft of the statement, noting that the Canadian Armed Forces rely on an encrypted U.S. military GPS signal. Galileo has its own encrypted signal, the Public Regulated Service, and countries outside the EU can use it only under a formal agreement.
On IRIS², short for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite, Canada will pursue an administrative arrangement, which the backgrounder describes as a framework for dialogue and information sharing. The EU plans a network of about 290 satellites in low and medium Earth orbit, which the Prime Minister’s Office says will give governments, militaries and emergency services secure links during crises. Norway and Iceland signed agreements in March to take part in IRIS² and in GOVSATCOM, the EU’s existing government satellite-communications service, and contribute money to both.
MDA Space also announced today that it will build digital antennas in Montreal for the first 66 IRIS² satellites, under an initial agreement with Thales Alenia Space worth more than $100 million.
Canada also has a secure low Earth orbit network of its own coming in Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation, which Ottawa has backed with a federal loan and contracted for Arctic defence communications.
Ottawa put $15 million into Xona Space Systems’ Montreal centre for a sovereign positioning, navigation and timing system on Oct. 20, and in the spring authorized Canada’s participation in ESA’s FutureNAV and Moonlight navigation programs.
Carney said space was among Canada’s strengths when he pitched the partnership to the European Parliament in September. Friday’s statement also lists space security among the areas covered by the Canada-EU Security and Defence Partnership signed in June 2025.
The government is funding navigation and secure-communications work at home while it opens talks on Europe’s systems. On navigation, the approach makes sense: Galileo is already running, Canada’s own capability is not, and the Canadian Armed Forces depend on a single encrypted military signal from the U.S. GPS system. The negotiations will show how far Ottawa wants to go with each.