The priciest project - estimated at about $47 million - involves building a maintenance facility in Halifax for Canada's Victoria Class submarines, which are wider and higher than the submarines used when the original facilities were built.

As part of the plan, a platform used to lift warships and submarines out of the water will also be upgraded.

MacKay has also announced a project worth $20 million to improve surveillance capabilities for Aurora aircraft.

The surveillance and reconnaissance features in the aircraft are being modernized by L-3 Communications to help crews carry out patrols over Canadian territory.

Defence Research and Development Canada-Atlantic will also receive $9.6 million to replace equipment in their dockyard laboratories located in Halifax and Esquimalt, B.C.

The Conservatives were criticized in July when they announced the $370-million refit of four Victoria Class submarines would go to a West Coast firm, Canadian Submarine Management Group.

Independent MP Bill Casey of Nova Scotia argued the decision was a waste of tax dollars because it will cost $1 million for each return trip to the West Coast by the subs that are based in Halifax.

Canada purchased the four mothballed diesel-electric submarines from the Royal Navy in the late 1990s for almost $900 million after the British decided to go with an all-nuclear sub fleet.

Reactivating the subs has been a huge challenge for the navy, especially in the aftermath of a fatal fire aboard HMCS Chicoutimi in October 2004.

The Conservative government had already indicated that some of the Aurora aircraft - which conduct many of the search-and-rescue operations off the coasts - would be upgraded.

Last year, MacKay announced the federal government planned to keep 10 of the military's 18 maritime surveillance planes flying until 2020.

The long-range patrol aircraft were introduced in the early 1980s to monitor the east and west coasts as well as the Arctic.

The nearly 30-year-old Auroras, based in Greenwood, N.S. and Comox, B.C., fly a total average of 6,500 hours a year.