Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan says the Canadian military is moving ahead with its preparations for F-35 fighter jets despite an ongoing government review of the purchase.
“We’re not currently in the position where we are waiting,” Carignan told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an exclusive interview airing Sunday. “We are working towards this acquisition.”
“Our pilots are off to the U.S. in the next few months to start training,” she added. “The infrastructure is going up. We have airfields being extended to get ready, so we are definitely not in a position where we are waiting.”
Canada made a deal with the U.S. in 2023 — after years of delays — to purchase 88 American-made F-35 fighter jets.
With the initial batch of 16 planes currently in production, however, the federal government said in the spring that it was reviewing the remainder of the deal and looking at potential alternatives to the purchase, setting a late summer deadline to make a decision.
That deadline came and went, and Canada’s minister of defence procurement, Stephen Fuhr, said in an interview on Question Period last week that there is no new timeline for the government to make a decision.
He said the prime minister will make a decision “when he’s ready.”
Carignan said once the decision is made, the military will adapt to it.
Asked by Kapelos whether it makes sense to spend time and money preparing for the purchase only for the government to potentially back out of it, Carignan said: “That will be for the government to decide.”
In an interview on Power Play with Kapelos last spring, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra signalled that Norad — the bilateral defence alliance between Canada and the U.S. — could be in jeopardy if Canada reneges on the plan.
Despite that, Fuhr said last week there’s “no pressure” to make a decision, and told Kapelos Canada will decide what’s best “based on our own needs.”
Fuhr announced a new Defence Investment Agency last week, with the return of U.S. President Donald Trump to the White House prompting a renewed focus in Canada on defence spending and procurement.
A release from the federal government announcing the new agency calls Canada’s defence procurement system “fragmented across several departments, slow to consult industry, and too complicated to respond to rapidly evolving military needs.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney has also pledged to reduce Canada’s reliance on the United States for equipment, saying in a speech last June that the government “should no longer send three-quarters of our defence capital spending to America.”
He laid out a plan in that same speech to diversify Canada’s military suppliers “with reliable European partners.”
When asked by Kapelos her position on whether Canada should move forward with the F-35 purchase, Carignan said it’s not up to her.
“This is clear that we are in the middle of building capacity for Canada to defend itself and to cover the Arctic,” she said.
“There are many, many different systems that contribute to that,” she added. “It will not be about just one of those, and the F-35 is part of that overall defence.”
You can watch Gen. Jennie Carignan’s full interview on CTV’s Question Period Sunday at 11 a.m. ET.
