The federal government had planned to buy 88 U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets but Prime Minister Mark Carney
ordered a review of that purchase
in the wake of threats against Canadian sovereignty by U.S. President Donald Trump.
At this point, Canada is only committed to buy 16 F-35s and the government hasn’t released the results of its report
which was due by the end of the summer
.
Meanwhile, the Swedish company Saab has proposed that Canada purchase the Gripen fighter jet instead.
Here’s a look at the issues surrounding the two aircraft.
Which jet has the best technology?
The F-35 boasts the latest in technology, with advanced avionics and stealth along with a sensor package that allows the plane to share data with multiple forces. Its supporters point out that it is the most advanced fighter jet in the world.
Gripen advocates note that the latest variant of that fighter aircraft has been enhanced with the most up-to-date systems and that it is designed to operate from dispersed austere locations with minimal ground crew and equipment support.
Buying the F-35 will allow Canada to operate seamlessly with American forces. But the U.S. has flagged new problems with the F-35 variant Canada plans to buy.
Those problems centre around the F-35’s Block 4 modernization,
from a U.S. government watchdog agency. The Block 4 version was supposed to have improvements in sensors and weapon capabilities but it is at least $6 billion over budget and five years behind schedule.
Which jet has lower maintenance and sustainment costs?
Supporters say that the F-35 is a technological marvel but admit that comes with a price. The aircraft has been dogged by concerns about the high costs to maintain the plane and keep it airworthy.
“The F-35 remains the most advanced fighter in the world, but too many of them are sitting idle,” Republican Senator Roger Wicker said at an Oct. 9 senate hearing. “The readiness rates of our aircraft continue to fall short of Pentagon goals.”
In April 2024, the Government Accountability Office, a U.S. government audit agency, reported that costs to sustain the F-35 fleet kept rising and the Pentagon was planning to fly the aircraft less than originally estimated, partly because of ongoing reliability issues.
The availability and use of F-35s have been lower, in some cases much lower, than those of other fighter aircraft of the same age,
concluded the Congressional Budget Office
, the government agency that provides financial data to U.S. lawmakers.
“For example, the average availability rate of a 7-year-old F-35A has been about the same as that of a 36-year-old F-16C/D and a 17-year-old F-22,” it added in a report released in June.
Gripen supporters counter that their plane has a much lower cost to operate than the F-35s and has high availability rates.
The issue of interoperability
F-35 advocates point out that the aircraft is fully interoperable with U.S. aircraft, a key point for defending North America as well as use in NATO operations. The jet, built by Lockheed Martin, is becoming the primary fighter jet for many NATO nations.
But Gripen enthusiasts counter that the aircraft is also being operated by NATO countries — Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Hungary — on NATO operations without any interoperability problems.
What about industrial benefits?
Supporters of Canada’s F-35 purchase point to the approximately $4 billion that Canadian companies have earned so far by supplying parts for the U.S. aircraft. That, in turn, has sustained or created Canadian aerospace jobs.
There are, however, no guarantees that Canadian companies will continue to be awarded contracts to supply parts for the F-35. It all comes down to those firms having to bid on and win such deals.
In addition, on Feb. 28
that Trump had told F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin he wanted those jobs back in the U.S. when the Canadian contracts came up for renewal.
Gripen manufacturer Saab
on the industrial benefits angle. It has proposed assembling Gripens in Canada, claiming that would create 6,000 new jobs over the course of 40 years.
The proposed assembly facility could also work on the 150 Gripens that are to be built for Ukraine.
Can the Americans actually control the F-35?
Retired Lt.-Gen. Yvan Blondin, the air force general who originally recommended Canada buy the F-35, has since said the purchase should no longer go forward. It’s not the aircraft that worries Blondin. He says it’s a top-notch plane.
But Blondin and some defence analysts worry about the amount of control the Americans have over the F-35. The U.S. controls all software upgrades on the aircraft and owns the parts for the planes, even those to be stored in Canada (the parts only become Canadian property once they are installed on the aircraft).
“The reality is that, without U.S. consent, no country can hope to operate the F-35 for long,” Blondin wrote in
.
The F-35 purchase made sense when the U.S. was a strong ally and alliances were supported and anchored by the Americans, he noted. But now with Trump, who has talked about annexing Canada and seizing Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, the U.S. is not no longer trustworthy, some analysts say.
Blondin said building Canada’s future fighter force solely on the F-35 would be “irresponsible.”
F-35 supporters counter that argument by claiming that Trump will be gone within a few years and they expect the U.S. to once again fully support its allies.
Could Canada buy both?
There has been talk about a possible scenario which would see Canada buy both the F-35 and the Gripen. F-35 supporters and Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, are firmly against such a proposal. They claim that Canada can’t afford to operate two different fleets of fighter planes.
That, however, isn’t true. In the past, the Royal Canadian Air Force has operated more than one fighter jet at a time. Supporters of the purchase of two different types of aircraft point out that with Carney’s promise to massively boost the defence budget, the Canadian Forces will have the funding to run additional air fleets.
Gripen supporters have suggested the intense pushback against operating both Gripens and F-35s reflects concerns among the supporters of the U.S. plane that such an arrangement would reveal just how more cost-effective the Swedish aircraft is.
Shouldn’t we just be buying drones anyway?
Some defence analysts point out that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing conflict have shown that fighter jets are becoming obsolete. Low-cost Ukrainian drones have destroyed multi-million dollar Russian fighters as they sit on the ground.
In addition, the U.S. military is developing autonomous drones that will, at first, work with piloted fighter aircraft.
But advocates of the F-35 and other fighter jets argue that it will be quite some time before such technology can take the place of current aircraft fleets.
David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe