Canada’s secretary of state for defence procurement, Stephen Fuhr, said he doesn’t think the federal government plans to get out of its contract to buy American-made F-35 fighter jets as 16 planes are currently being manufactured.
“I don’t think that’s the direction we’re heading,” Fuhr said in an interview on CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live when asked if it’s possible for Ottawa to exit the contract after getting the 16 jets. “But there’ll be a decision and we’ll make it when we’re ready.”
A spokesperson for Fuhr later clarified to CBC News he was referring to the 16 jets under contract, not the entire fleet. The Liberal government signalled its intent in 2023 to purchase 88 F-35 jets from U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin.
After rising trade tensions with the United States, then-defence minister Bill Blair said in March that Canada was reconsidering the purchase.
In a statement, the spokesperson for Fuhr said “Canada is contractually obligated to 16 aircraft, which are in various stages of production with the manufacturer. A decision on the full program is currently under review.”
Fuhr told host Rosemary Barton that Prime Minister Mark Carney “will make a decision when he’s ready” on the contract.
“There’s infrastructure being built out at the two main operating bases,” he said. “And when [Carney] is comfortable with making a decision, he’ll make it.”
When asked whether he’s been requested to consider the F-35 contract in light of Canada’s ongoing push to secure a trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, Fuhr said, “No, I’m not considering that.”
“Again, we’re a sovereign country. We’ll make our own decisions and we’ll stand on our own two feet,” he said.
Stephen Fuhr, secretary of state for defence procurement, says the new Defence Investment Agency is to stimulate the economy by bringing Canadian industry into the defence procurement tent. He added that Canada will still work with the U.S. on defence, but will no longer be spending 75 cents of every dollar there.
On Thursday, the government unveiled its long-awaited, long-promised agency to co-ordinate and speed up the purchase and delivery of equipment to the Canadian military.
In a written statement, Carney said the Defence Investment Agency will have a mandate to work more closely with partners like the United Kingdom, Australia and France. Canada currently buys most of its military equipment from the U.S.
The agency is unique because it has “its own authority. It’s got contracting authority. It’s got its own resources and it’s got its own people,” Fuhr said.
“It’s structured in a way to succeed, and we’re going to make it work.”
What about a mixed fleet?
When Blair announced the F-35 review in March, he also suggested the remainder of Canada’s fleet could be made up of aircraft from European suppliers, such as the Swedish-built Saab Gripen.
A mixed fleet gives Canada more options to handle various threats, rather than relying on one tool to solve a problem, Fuhr said, adding that it’s one of many possibilities.
“What happens if you have to persist in that space for months and months and years? The tool that you use, is it the right tool to do that job?” he said.
“That’s a very simplistic way of looking at it. But we need to have a whole wide range of capability sets to deal with all the eventualities that we could face.”
A new Auditor General’s report finds the cost of buying U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighter jets has ballooned almost 50 per cent from an estimated $19 billion to $27.7 billion — and that’s without the additional cost of weapons and infrastructure. The program is also facing a shortage of trained pilots.
The secretary of state was also asked by Barton how quickly Canada can spend money on military equipment. The federal government is working to meet a NATO pledge to spend two per cent of NDP on defence by 2025-26 — approximately $63 billion.
Fuhr said he thinks Canada can spend a lot faster and maybe use commercial contracting, which he was told is a quicker process.
“There’s a whole bunch of different things we can do from the process and procedure side,” he said. “I’ll be very, very focused on making sure we use the right process for the right procurement to make sure it goes faster.”
