The US cannot be trusted as a defense partner. From parts, to software to delivery. You don't buy weapons from those who threaten your sovereignty.

F35s are a trojan horse.

Ugh

The interesting thing here is why these sources were willing to speak about military procurement. Speaking to media about defence stuff seems like it would probably carry stiff penalties - unless of course you were "authorized" (wink, wink) to do so.

For that reason, I suspect this is an attempt by the Carney government to test the waters, to get a sense of how much blowback a move like this would result in.

Probably worth a letter and/or phone call to your MP if you're opposed!

This would be a bad decision! 😡

Can we maintain them weight shipping them to a foreign country?

No? Then don’t buy them.

As the last year has shown we cannot rely on the US being our partner when it inconveniences them or they feel they can extort us.

I sent my do nothing back bencher MP an email about this, even citing the old letter I sent him back in march where he practically said do not worry it will be years before we get them.

We need to protest and loudly. Our government, elected to fight this shit is rolling over every chance it gets.

WE DO NOT NEED ANY NEW DEALS WITH THE FASCIST DRUMPHKINS REGIME.

The idea that the "best" product is one that we have to rely on another country to not only build, but to maintain, fix, update software/firmware...No thank you.

The Gripens that come with the knowledge transfer (and jobs creation) of building, maintaining, and fixing them ourselves? That's a way higher value than anyone in government seems to realize.

Why would we want to rely on the country that has threatened our sovereignty for our fighters?! Is our government really that dumb?

Sad to say this, but we are still very much in the fold of the empire. The US has an explicit strategy of division of labour for conflict with Russia and China, and we are alongside Europe in the division against Russia. Just look at what we are actually doing. Our defense investment isn't to harden our southern border. It's to harden our northern border, facing Russia. We, as the public, are being played. US strategy documents last year laid out the need to apply pressure to create urgency among allies to reindustrialize their military industries, spend more on arms, and for those surrounding Russia to step up and shoulder the burden of facing them so the US can focus on China. This year we see the 5% NATO target demanded by the US accepted, a major bump in Canadian defense spending for the arctic (but not to defend against the US), and increased Canada-Europe collaboration on defense industry as NATO now talks about a two-front war with Russia and China. So, our defense officials won't be evaluating purchases based on conflict against the US. They'll be evaluating based on our integration with US systems as part of the larger strategic direction.

https://boltflight.com/f-35-crash-report-a-detailed-analysis-of-recent-incidents-and-implications/

https://www.aerohaber.com/f-35-safety-under-scrutiny-a-timeline-of-crashes/

Yeah, no shit we should buy them. We desperately needed to replace the F-18s 10 years ago. Now, we have waffled on this purchase for so long that we are out of time for choosing another vendor. We don't have a functional air force that can meet our NATO and NORAD committments right now, and it's not like we can fix that by just going down to Fighters R Us and picking up a few Gripens either. Procurements take years to iron out the details, and years more for the manufacturer to build.

This is a terrible time to be without a military. Russia has already started acting on its territorial claims, and China is building up to be able to go after theirs. We need a functional airforce now, not in another 5 to 10 years. It has been often suggested that we only take the first batch delivered to use as a stop gap while we shop for something else for the bulk of the fleet, but I really don't think we're up for the logistical capacity required to run two different fighters yet. Maybe of the CAF grows considerably, that would be possible. I think purely from an operational standpoint we are stuck with the F-35, so to make it more appealing from a political view, Canada should play hardball with Lockheed-Martin and get the Israeli deal, where they do their own depot-level maintenance and have some parts manufacturing in country.