"Canadian defense officials have strongly made the case that Ottawa should stick to a plan to buy 88 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets rather than splitting the order, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
"The review stops short of making a formal recommendation, one of the sources said.
“The final decision rests with the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney, said the sources, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.”
Sad to say this, but we are still very much in the fold of the empire. The US has an explicit strategy of division of labour for conflict with Russia and China, and we are alongside Europe in the division against Russia. Just look at what we are actually doing. Our defense investment isn’t to harden our southern border. It’s to harden our northern border, facing Russia. We, as the public, are being played. US strategy documents last year laid out the need to apply pressure to create urgency among allies to reindustrialize their military industries, spend more on arms, and for those surrounding Russia to step up and shoulder the burden of facing them so the US can focus on China. This year we see the 5% NATO target demanded by the US accepted, a major bump in Canadian defense spending for the arctic (but not to defend against the US), and increased Canada-Europe collaboration on defense industry as NATO now talks about a two-front war with Russia and China. So, our defense officials won’t be evaluating purchases based on conflict against the US. They’ll be evaluating based on our integration with US systems as part of the larger strategic direction.