By Scott Taylor
On Thursday Oct. 22, the Royal Canadian Air Force ceremoniously took delivery of their first two CF-35 fighter jets.
While this marks a major milestone in a long and tumultuous procurement process, it needs to be pointed out that these two CF-35's were handed over to the RCAF at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
As they are completed, the first eight CF-35's will be routed through Luke Air Force Base where they will be used to train RCAF pilots. The first of CF-35's will not actually operate from Canadian soil until sometime in 2028, and the first CF-35 squadron is not expected to be fully operational until 2029.
Those who follow RCAF issues closely will be aware that in January 2023, the Trudeau Liberals announced they were proceeding to purchase 88 CF-35's at a total project cost of $19 billion (CDN). However at that juncture only 16 CF-35's were actually contracted for at a purchase price of $7 billion (CDN). It was this little wrinkle that allowed Prime Minister Mark Carney to use the uncontracted remaining 72 CF-35's as a bargaining chip in response to US President Donald J. Trump's trade war.
In the summer of 2025, Carney ordered the RCAF to review the remaining portion of this project. That review was completed b the fall of 2025, but has yet to be released by the Prime Minister's Office.
To add a little gravitas to this situation SAAB of Sweden has in the interim offered to build 72 of their Gripen E model fighter jets here in Canada which would be a boom for the domestic aviation industry. In fact last week SAAB put out a press release actually naming potential Canadian industry partners should Canada decide to opt out of the remaining portion of the CF-35 purchase. For their part, it is painfully obvious that the RCAF senior brass have wanted the CF-35 and only the CF-35 from the outset.
For those keeping score, in 2010 the Harper Conservatives announced they were buying 66 CF-35's at a project cost of $9 billion. By 2011 cost overruns and delayed delivery schedules caused the Conservatives to push the reset button on the whole project.
In the subsequent federal election in 2015 the Liberals campaigned on buying any fighter jet but the CF-35 to replace the RCAF's aging fleet of CF-18 fighters.
Once in power, the Liberals held a competition to determine the best fighter jet for Canada. It was no surprise that the F-35 was eventually selected as the winner, especially since it was the RCAF brass who set the parameters for the competition.
It should be pointed out that in that competition the SAAB Gripen was a close second. Which makes the current deal to supply Canada with a mixed fleet of fighters all the more understandable.
What is not helping the cause of the RCAF senior brass are a number of factors. First and foremost would be the Canadian public's resistance to being bullied by Trump in the current trade dispute. If there is a non-American option Canadians would prefer their tax dollars go anywhere but the US.
Ditto for the commentary from US Ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra. His threats only make any US military hardware purchase all the less appealing.
Then you have the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin - the defence industry mega-corporation that makes the CF-35. Combined they are not doing themselves any favours when it comes to selling Canadians on the CF-35.
A recent headline in the Ottawa Citizen read "DND refuses to say if it received secret F-35 report from U.S. - The Trump administration has barred a July audit from public release." According to the Citizen, the Department of National Defence is refusing to answer questions about whether the Pentagon has shared a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding the F-35 program, with the RCAF. That GAO report was tabled in July but has yet to be released publicly.
What makes this development particularly suspect is the fact that it is the first time in 20 years of GAO reports on the F-35 program that the entire file was kept from the public.
To be honest, those previous GAO reports have been admittedly less than glowing. In fact many GAO reports have been highly critical of the F-35 program, warning about a lack of spare parts and pointing out the aircraft fleet’s overall lack of availability for flight operations as well as technical problems.
Last September the GAO reported that the Block 4 version of the F-35, the type that Canada plans to buy, is at least $6 billion over budget and five years behind schedule.
In addition, the GAO released another report in early June 2026 that determined the F-35s are only fully mission capable about 25 per cent of the time. Being fully mission capable means the aircraft can perform all assigned missions. By contrast in 2021, the F-35 was deemed to be fully mission capable 38 per cent of the time.
Which brings us back to the secrecy surrounding the July GAO audit on the F-35, which the Pentagon has completely blocked from public release. If all those previous terrible tidings could be released, what could the July GAO audit have possibly uncovered?
While DND has refused to confirm whether or not that audit was shared with the RCAF, Luke Pollard, United Kingdom secretary of state for defence readiness, told the UK House of Commons on Sept. 11 that the US GAO July F-35 audit had not been shared with the RAF.
If that is the case, you can bet the Canadians remain in the dark as well.
Given the anti-Canada rhetoric emanating from Trump and being parroted by his self-proclaimed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, you can bet we will be the last to get the details of that GAO F-35 audit.
So before we start sending RCAF pilots to begin training on the two spanking new CF-35's at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, I say we scrub the whole CF-35 purchase. We can sell off the 16 which we currently have contracted to an allied country that is further back in the delivery line for F-35's which they intend to operate.
US Ambassador Hoekstra has told Canada repeatedly that we cannot operate a mixed fleet of fighters. Then let's take him at his word and opt for a single fleet of 88 Gripens from SAAB.
