Canada Receives First Two U.S. F-35 Fighter Jets While Carney Reconsiders Full 88-Jet Purchase

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Canada has crossed a milestone in its decades-long effort to replace the CF-18, accepting its first two Lockheed Martin CF-35A fighter jets on October 22. Yet the aircraft are beginning their Canadian service thousands of kilometres from Canada, at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where they will support pilot and maintenance training.

The delivery comes at an unusually complicated moment. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government remains committed to the first 16 F-35s but is still reconsidering whether Canada should ultimately acquire all 88 aircraft envisioned under the original plan. That leaves Ottawa balancing immediate military requirements against rising costs, industrial policy, sovereignty concerns and a rapidly changing relationship with the United States.

Canada’s First CF-35As Arrive — But Stay in Arizona

The Royal Canadian Air Force’s acceptance of the first two CF-35As marks the moment when Canada’s future fighter program moved from procurement documents and factory production into an actual aircraft fleet. The jets were accepted at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona on October 22, 2026. Rather than being flown north immediately, they will remain in the United States as part of the training system being established for Canadian pilots and maintainers. Canada plans to station its first eight aircraft at Luke during the initial phase of the transition. The first CF-35As are currently expected to arrive at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta, in 2028.

The milestone follows another symbolic moment only weeks earlier. Canada’s first CF-35A completed its maiden flight from Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility in Texas on September 23. For the RCAF, these events make a transition that has been discussed for years suddenly tangible. Canadian personnel can now prepare around the aircraft they will actually operate. But the Arizona location also illustrates how gradual that transition will be. Canada has received its first jets without yet having a CF-35 operating squadron on Canadian soil, and several years of training, infrastructure work and fleet conversion still lie ahead.

Why Ottawa Chose the F-35 in the First Place

Canada formally announced in January 2023 that it had finalized an agreement to acquire 88 F-35A fighters following the federal government’s competitive Future Fighter Capability Project. At the time, Ottawa estimated the investment at roughly C$19 billion, including the aircraft, associated equipment, sustainment setup and supporting infrastructure. The goal was straightforward but enormous in scale: replace a CF-18 fleet that entered Canadian service in the 1980s while maintaining the ability to defend Canadian airspace and fulfill obligations to NORAD and NATO.

The F-35’s attraction goes considerably beyond raw speed. The conventional-takeoff F-35A can reach approximately Mach 1.6 and has a published range exceeding 2,200 kilometres, but its defining features are its low-observable design, sensors, networking and ability to combine information from multiple systems into a unified picture for the pilot. Canadian defence material has highlighted its radar, electro-optical and infrared systems, data links and sensor fusion as central advantages. Those capabilities matter in the Arctic, where enormous distances and limited infrastructure make early detection and information sharing particularly valuable. Ottawa’s original plan therefore treated the F-35 not merely as a replacement aircraft but as a central component of a more integrated North American and allied air-defence network.

Carney’s Review Reopened a Decision That Looked Settled

Prime Minister Mark Carney ordered a review of the F-35 acquisition in March 2025, reopening a procurement decision that had appeared largely settled two years earlier. The government said the reassessment would consider operational requirements, industrial benefits, strategic partnerships, alternative aircraft and delivery timelines. The broader political environment was difficult to ignore: Canada-U.S. relations had deteriorated sharply, and questions about relying heavily on American defence systems gained more political weight. A review that was initially expected to move relatively quickly remained unresolved well into 2026.

The crucial distinction is between the first 16 F-35s and the remaining 72 aircraft envisioned under the 88-jet plan. National Defence has repeatedly stated that Canada remains committed to acquiring the initial 16. Those aircraft are therefore proceeding through production and delivery even while Ottawa debates the eventual shape of the larger fleet. The October delivery does not mean Carney has quietly approved all 88. Instead, Canada has reached the unusual position of introducing a new fighter into service while the government is still reviewing how extensively it intends to use that fighter. The first jets make abandoning the F-35 entirely increasingly unrealistic, but they do not settle whether the RCAF will ultimately operate an all-F-35 fleet.

Gripen Has Become the Most Visible Alternative

The most prominent alternative in the renewed debate is Saab’s Gripen E. Ottawa has acknowledged that its review is considering different options, including the possibility of operating a mix of fighter aircraft rather than buying 88 F-35s. Saab has aggressively promoted that possibility, arguing that the Gripen could complement the stealth fighter and increase the number of combat aircraft available to Canada. The Swedish company has also emphasized the Gripen’s ability to operate from dispersed locations and has pitched Canadian production and greater domestic involvement as part of its case.

Saab has tried to make industrial sovereignty a major part of that proposal. In July 2026, it announced a memorandum of understanding with Canadian training and simulation company CAE that would support a Canadian-based Gripen training ecosystem if Canada were to acquire the aircraft. No Canadian Gripen purchase has been approved, however, and the government still faces a fundamental trade-off. A dual fleet could diversify suppliers and potentially give Canadian industry a larger role in one aircraft program, but it would also mean supporting two fighter types instead of one. Separate training pipelines, maintenance requirements, spare-parts systems and operational procedures would have to be considered at a time when the RCAF is already managing personnel and infrastructure constraints.

The Price Tag Has Changed Dramatically

Cost is one of the strongest arguments for taking another look at the fighter program, although the numbers require careful interpretation. The Office of the Auditor General reported in 2025 that the Future Fighter Capability Project’s estimated cost had climbed from C$19.0 billion in 2022 to C$27.7 billion in 2024 — an increase of roughly 46 per cent. Factors included foreign-exchange movements, inflation, higher infrastructure costs and greater contingency requirements. The contingency allocation alone grew substantially, reflecting the financial uncertainty associated with a complex procurement that stretches across many years.

Even C$27.7 billion does not represent every expenditure necessary to make the fleet fully operational. The Auditor General estimated that at least another C$5.5 billion of required spending fell outside the formal project scope, including additional infrastructure and advanced weapons. That distinction matters because the political debate is often reduced to the price of 88 aircraft. Canada is actually paying for an entire combat capability: jets, weapons, secure facilities, simulators, information systems, training, maintenance arrangements and the physical transformation of Cold Lake and Bagotville. For taxpayers, the aircraft are the most visible part of the purchase, but some of the largest risks involve everything that must be built around them.

Canadian Industry Already Has Billions at Stake

Any decision to reduce the F-35 order also has an industrial dimension. National Defence said in 2026 that more than C$5.2 billion in F-35-related contracts had been awarded to more than 110 Canadian companies over the life of Canada’s participation in the multinational program. Dozens of Canadian firms remain active in the supply chain. The work is spread across specialties ranging from structural components to engine monitoring and landing-gear systems, making the fighter program relevant to aerospace workers far beyond the air bases where the aircraft will eventually operate.

Examples include Magellan Aerospace in Manitoba, which has worked on horizontal tail assemblies; Ontario-based GasTOPS, which provides engine-related monitoring technology; and Quebec’s Héroux-Devtek, which contributes landing-gear components. National Defence said in April 2026 that each newly produced F-35 contained more than C$3.3 million in Canadian-made components as of December 2025. Ottawa has also estimated that acquisition and initial sustainment could support roughly 3,300 Canadian jobs annually and contribute more than C$425 million per year to GDP. Those figures are government estimates rather than guaranteed outcomes, but they explain why the review is about more than military specifications. Changing the fleet plan could reshape a defence-industrial strategy that Canadian companies have spent years building around.

The Sovereignty Debate Is More Complicated Than a ‘Kill Switch’

Concerns about U.S. control over the F-35 have become politically potent, but some of the most dramatic claims require qualification. National Defence has explicitly rejected the idea that Washington possesses a secret “kill switch” capable of remotely shutting down Canadian fighters. Ottawa says Canada will own its aircraft, operate them independently and decide when and how they are used. Canada also participates in the Australia-Canada-United Kingdom Reprogramming Laboratory, giving Canadian personnel a role in developing mission-data files used by the aircraft.

At the same time, independence is not the same thing as technological isolation. The F-35 was deliberately built around an international support system led through the multinational Joint Program Office. Hardware and software modernization is coordinated across the program, while spare parts are managed through a global support structure before being assigned to individual aircraft. Canada participates in that system as a partner and has input into priorities, but the fleet will remain connected to a multinational ecosystem in which the United States plays the dominant role. That makes the sovereignty question more nuanced than whether Washington can simply switch an aircraft off. The real policy question is how much dependence on shared software, logistics, upgrades and supply chains Canada considers acceptable for a capability expected to remain in service for decades.

The CF-18’s 2032 Retirement Makes the Clock Hard to Ignore

Whatever Ottawa decides about the final fleet mix, the RCAF does not have unlimited time. Canada’s remaining CF-18 Hornets are scheduled to be retired by 2032 after decades of service and repeated life-extension work. The transition schedule calls for the first CF-35s to arrive in Canada in 2028, initial operational capability around 2029 and full operational capability around the early 2030s. Any major change to the procurement therefore has to be measured against the possibility of creating a gap between the old fleet’s retirement and the new force becoming fully ready.

Infrastructure and personnel make that schedule more challenging. The Auditor General found that permanent fighter squadron facilities were running more than three years behind the original schedule, with completion expected around 2031. National Defence has consequently developed temporary infrastructure measures for the early aircraft. Staffing presents another concern. Government disclosures in 2025 showed that fighter-pilot positions were only about two-thirds filled, while the Auditor General warned that the planned training system was not expected to produce enough qualified F-35 pilots by 2032–33 without changes. Those issues exist regardless of which aircraft politicians prefer. Fighters cannot generate operational readiness without pilots, maintainers, secure facilities, weapons and functioning support systems.

What the First Two Jets Change — And What They Don’t

The arrival of Canada’s first two CF-35As changes the fighter debate in one important way: the transition is no longer hypothetical. Aircraft carrying Canadian markings now exist in an operational training environment, additional jets are progressing through the program, personnel preparation is moving forward and infrastructure spending is already underway. The first eight aircraft are expected to support training at Luke Air Force Base, followed by the first Canadian-based fighters at Cold Lake in 2028. Current planning points toward initial operational capability in 2029, with full operational capability around 2033.

What the delivery does not do is answer the question hanging over the remaining 72 aircraft. As of October 26, 2026, Ottawa was still reviewing the full 88-fighter plan and publicly leaving room for alternatives, including a mixed fleet. Carney must therefore make a decision in a far different strategic environment from the one in which the original purchase was announced. The government is weighing the F-35’s advanced capabilities and established NORAD integration against cost pressures, defence-industrial ambitions, supplier dependence and a desire for greater strategic flexibility. Canada’s first two F-35s have arrived. The harder decision is now how many will follow them.

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