In August 1957, the Diefenbaker government signed the NORAD (North American Air Defense) Agreement with the United States, making Canada a partner with American command and control. The USAF was in the process of completely automating their air defence system with the SAGE project, and offered Canada the opportunity to share this sensitive information for the air defence of North America. One aspect of the SAGE system was the Bomarc nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missile. This led to studies on basing Bomarcs in Canada in order to push the defensive line further north, even though the deployment was found to be extremely costly. Deploying the missiles alone was expected to cost C$164 million, while SAGE would absorb another C$107 million, not counting the cost of improvements to radar; in all, it was projected to raise Canada's defence spending "as much as 25 to 30%", according to George Pearkes, then minister of national defence.