Supporters of Canada’s F-35 purchase point to the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts that Canadian companies have earned by supplying parts for the U.S. aircraft. That, in turn, has sustained or created Canadian aerospace jobs. But on Feb. 28, the National Post reported that Trump has told Lockheed Martin he wants those jobs back in the U.S. when the Canadian contracts come up for renewal.

During the 2015 election campaign, Justin Trudeau vowed his government would never purchase the F-35.

As prime minister, Trudeau continued to point out the Canadian military had no need for the F-35 and he blamed the Conservatives for agreeing to purchase a problem-plagued fighter jet. But, with the 2023 announcement, the Liberals not only committed to the acquisition, but also increased the number of jets to be bought to 88 from the 65 the Conservatives had wanted.

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18 points

This would be easier if another ally (or an ally, rather) made a 5th gen fighter, but there are none. We’d be stuck either with ageing platforms or waiting another 10-15 years for Eoropeans to finish one of the 5th gens they’re working on.

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25 points
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The problem is that in the event of a conflict with the US, those jets would be entirely unusable because they’d shut them down. And we’d be billions of dollars down.

It would be better to spend that money elsewhere, even if it’s out of date, than to have nothing.

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2 points

Pretty sure we couldn’t buy enough of anything to make a difference against the US in even the long term. Except nukes. Those are the only feasible deterrents we could use.

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10 points

Buys a shitload of drones. Just ask Russia how devastating those can be.

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2 points

If US attacked Canada it would be a nightmare for them. Canada is huge. If you think Russia is having a hard time in Ukraine thst is just a small taste of it.

We def need to cancel the f-35 program.

Trump has destroyed American exceptionalism.

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6 points

At that point China, Russia and America will be at their 6th

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7 points

China and America kinda already are, China has it’s J-36 and J-50 prototypes flying right now, America supposedly flew a prototype associated with it’s next-gen fighter program, but there’s just some pictures of airframes on tarmac that nobody can identify so they assume it must be the next-gen fighter.

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5 points

Well thats what we need to be putting our money in right now (speaking as a european). Even if america does not turn full authoritarian in the next 4 years and we get them back to our site, we can not sit this out right now. We need to be able to fight for our own interests, thats one of the few things Trump is right about (even though it is simply an excuse to drop us).

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1 point
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Screw this “waiting another 10-15 years.” We need to join the GCAP program, and get seriously active.

Lead time is necessarily immense, but we could both shorten it and improve the end product.

“Waiting for someone else to develop” has been a symptom of Canada’s Aerospace industry since the Arrow was shitcanned, and has crept into our national subconscious stream. We need to attack that attitude.

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1 point

I’d be on board with that, but it doesn’t solve the short-term problem. I seriously doubt our CF-18s will last another 15 years.

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1 point

True enough, but we can get stopgap gen 4.5 fighters at about half the price of the F-35, and with a vastly lower operational cost.

Get a fleet of Gripen Es, and run them in parallel with our existing Hornets, replacing the Hornets as they age out over the next decade or so. By then the new GCAP fighter should be in full production.

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1 point

South Korea won’t sell theirs will they?

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