The federal government has paused a four-year pilot project to test High Arctic surveillance technology at the entrance to the Northwest Passage, CBC News has learned.

As part of the Northern Watch program, scientists from Defence Research and Development Canada began installing underwater listening devices and land-based sensors on Devon Island in the summer of 2008.

If successful, the tested technology would help Canada detect ships and submarines passing through the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage.

Contacted by CBC News, a National Defence spokesperson would only say the Northern Watch program is taking a hiatus this summer as researchers want to evaluate data the devices have collected already.

They will then decide what to do with the program, the spokesperson added.

Pulling away from project?

But Arctic sovereignty expert Rob Huebert said he's troubled by the lack of information about the Northern Watch program's hiatus.

"In the past, we've seen this type of silence when projects all of the sudden go from fairly high-profile to ... not being fully funded," said Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

"Often it's a sign that, in fact, the government's looking for a politically popular way of announcing that they are, in fact, pulling away from surveillance and enforcement capabilities in the Arctic."

Huebert said Canada needs to keep its eye on the Arctic, especially now that the Northwest Passage and other waterways can be navigated earlier.

Canada gets some Arctic surveillance data from the RadarSat 2 satellite, said Michael Byers, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.

Ground surveillance needed, too: expert

But Byers said ground-based technologies are needed to back up information from the satellites, adding that Northern Watch gave Canada a chance to develop its own technology for the Arctic.

"Anyone who deals with surveillance will tell you that you need to have a capacity to gather information from the ground, as well as from space," he said.

"Any time that you suspend a research or technology development program, you lose the momentum of the acquisition of new information."

Huebert said it seems to be a habit for governments, both Conservative and Liberal, to pull away quietly from huge Arctic sovereignty projects they have rolled out. He warned that other federal projects in the Arctic could be at risk.

"Be it the joint-support ships which were supposed to have an Arctic capability, or the fact that we haven't seen any announcements in terms of the navy production of the Arctic offshore patrol vessels, or any of the other more expensive projects, we just don't seem to be seeing evidence that we've gone to the next stage," he said.