By Scott Taylor
Admittedly, the rhetoric and threats generated by US President Donald Trump's punitive trade tariffs have gotten out of control - on both sides.
The majority of Canadians support the stance made by Prime Minister Mark Carney when he abruptly broke off the 11th hour trade negotiations and announced retaliatory tariffs on some $20 billion in US imports. Ontario Premier Doug Ford denounced Trump's tariffs, threatened to cut off hydro electric power to the US and called on the US President to kiss his posterior.
True to petulant form, Trump subsequently singled out Ontario for retribution by declaring that Lake Ontario will henceforth be known officially as Lake America. The problem with reducing such high stakes policy debates to school playground name calling, is that it is counter productive to all parties involved.
Trump calling Canadians 'nasty' and 'unfair' is nothing new. He has been threatening to annex us as the 51st State since he was re-elected president in November 2024. The problem is that Trump's hand-picked inner cabinet, who should be acting as the adults in the room, are instead disassembling any remaining guardrails which might actually reign in Trump.
One of the most ridiculous examples of this buffoonish sycophantry was the false comments made by US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. For some reason, this former reality TV persona turned Trump cabinet member thought he should weigh in on Canada's military capability. Or more specifically Canada's lack of military capability.
"It is a country that doesn't have a military,” Duffy claimed in a Fox News interview. Duffy then doubled down by adding, "And so to think that they are gonna go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the US, I think it is foolish on their part."
Now that sort of flippant cavalier boast may not be surprising coming from a former host of a MTV show, but this guy is currently overseeing the entire US Department of Transportation. He should have some basic knowledge of his continental neighbour.
To their credit many US veterans went online to correct Duffy, pointing out that not only does Canada have a military but that we had served and suffered alongside them during the US-led occupation of Afghanistan.
It is also a tremendous leap of logic to imply that Canada thinks we will engage in a shooting war with the US over a trade dispute.
However, Duffy did perhaps inadvertently put the focus back on the Canadian military in this equation. In the summer of 2025 during the first round of Trump's imposition of tariff's Carney had led his chorus of 'Elbow's up!' defiance by pledging to drastically reduce the number of weapon systems the CAF purchases from the US.
To date those pledges have been hollow promises. Despite the fact that Carney announced a RCAF-led review of the F-35 contract over a year ago, the result of that completed review has yet to be made public. In the interim the RCAF have remained steadfast in their commitment to the F-35 and only the F-35.
In December 2022 Canada ordered 16 F-35's at a cost of $7 billion (CDN) out of a total purchase of 88 F-35's at a cost of $29 billion. Canada has since placed orders for long lead items for a further 14 F-35's.
In the past I have argued that Canada should stand up to Trump and punch him in the pocketbook by cancelling the remaining 72 F-35's. We could have taken delivery of the 16 F-35's already contracted and replace the rest of our aging CF-18 fleet with 72 Saab Gripens.
However, now that Trump has upped the ante and the rhetoric, I firmly believe we should scrap the entire F-35 purchase. We can find another F-35 client nation to take early delivery of our 16 F-35's from Lockheed Martin and ditto with the 14 long lead items that we have apparently contracted.
Instead we should take up Saab of Sweden's offer to assemble a fleet of Gripen fighters here in Canada thereby strengthening our own domestic aviation industry.
The Gripen is a proven NATO interceptor, better suited to the defence of our Arctic airspace than the F-35 strike aircraft. The Gripen is substantially cheaper to operate than the F-35 and it has a far greater operational readiness record than the problem plagued F-35 fleet.
The Canadian Army has also been doing their level best to make a mockery of Carney's 'Elbow's up!' policy of weaning ourselves off near total dependency on US made weapons. In January 2026 it was announced that Canada would spend $2.6 billion (CDN) to acquire 26 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (aka HIMARS).
In June with the trade war sabres already rattling, Canada went forward with confirming this contract with Lockheed Martin. While considered an 'urgent basis' purchase, under the terms of the contract Canada will not receive the first of the HIMARS until 2029.
Again, given the current state of our relationship, I say scrap that Lockheed Martin HIMARS deal and place an order for the South Korean K-239 Chunmoo rocket artillery system.
Let's truly stop buying weapon systems from the one and only country that repeatedly threatens us with annexation.
