Canada reconsidering F-35 purchase amid tensions with Washington, says minister

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/f35-blair-trump-1.7484477

49 comments

  1. > Blair is suggesting that the first F-35s might be accepted and the remainder of the fleet would be made up of aircraft from European suppliers, such as the Swedish-built Saab Gripen, which finished second in the competition.

    What are the probabilities that US won’t block the export of the Gripen ?

  2. It’s not a good look when your most trusted “Friend” puts in a kill switch in the best and most advanced toy you bought from him just because he no longer likes you anymore.

    I would stop buying toys from him too.

  3. It doesn’t matter how much it cost to get out. Just leave it.

  4. Canada should back out.

    Why let a hostile foreign power be able to remotely shut them down?

  5. I would hope they would reconsider! Why would you buy a warplane from a hostile power that could prevent you from using with the flick of a button?

    Canada reconsidering a lot of shit with the US.

    Fuck Donald Trump and ELongated Muskrat. Fucking idiots.

  7. America can’t be trusted.

    They are an enemy nation, having declared an economic war against Canada and threatening to invade.

    FAFO Americans. I dare you to invade.

  8. Why would you buy weapons from a country that is contesting your sovereignty? Lmao

  9. Diversifying military capabilities is always a good thing. Payment for the first 16 F-35 jets are complete, so take them. As for the rest, I don’t think any Canadian would argue against a safer fleet of jets that we have 100% control over

  10. Brazilian here; we got the Gripen, and it’s a beast! We also got the rights to learn to manufacture and maintain it. Join us in the Saab world!

  12. I cannot believe we are once again in the position of nuking a defense program twice but here we are. Submarines, Helicopters, Planes… The problem with all of it. Is it’s foreign. If we buy anything from now on. Demand we build ours here.

    The only way only way we can ever bring back manufacturing is for the goverment to spend the billions and billions of dollars to rebuild the basic infrastructure. We can’t even make fucking beer cans right now…

  13. Cancel it. I’m American and frankly so long as Trump is in power, I will never trust him.

  14. Tell you what Canada, I’ll let you keep planes you’ve purchased… but you must return the missles. Drop them off at 1100 South Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Fl

  15. Saab selling IP rights for the Gripen and allowing us to build them in Canada is a major incentive in this whole development. If Carney can come in and guarantee thousands of great manufacturing jobs in industrial hubs in Canada he will be riding high early in his tenure.

  16. Canada…. please pull out. Nothing will make the morons in Washington disappear faster than a billion dollar war fight organization like Lockheed Martin losing money over tough talk.

  17. Trump said we don’t need anything from Canada. That includes canadian money. Bye bye USA, hello Sweden. 

  18. I can’t imagine the MIC is happy with countries considering other countries over the U.S. for their weapons.

  19. Buy from the South Koreans, Japanese, French, British, Swedes, Finns, Germans and Australians. They got some sick ass weaponry and a few of them are considering a deal with Canada.

    *Why can’t Canada just start our own manufacturing, the refineries and just restart our military industrial complex*

    *We can go back to the days where we had 4th largest navy*

  20. It has nothing to do with tariffs, it’s for national security since you cannot have your biggest threat controlling your air defense

  21. Yeh I’d be sus too. Knowing Trump, he’s more than likely to put in disable weapons trigger, eject pilot or some devious bullshit like that.

  22. Buy from France or England. They gave capable fighters. Hell buy from India or China if they will sell them to us

  23. Lockheed Martin is *seriously* rethinking support for the Orange Demented One. Pretty soon their entire pipeline of foreign orders is going to be empty.

    Too Bad, so SAD!!!

  24. I think the only thing we could buy is ultra low tech. Like ammunition. But, gee whiz, I would not want to be buying weapons from a hostile country. That being said, Ukraine sure made good use of Russian weapons in that fight. Especially at the beginning. High tech weapons that can be turned off or tracked should obviously be a no go.

  26. Pissing off allies to the point where they consider or actually pull F-35 purchases, so much winning. Honestly one of the benefits of the US spending so much on the military is that it allows for these sort of contracts. So trump has managed to make one of the main selling points of the US to seem like a bad idea.

    On top of that, if they refuse along with other countries. That will end up costing US tax payers money in the long run. So when trying to save money, this ends up costing us more.

  27. Don’t buy them, the USA may have sabotaged them.

    Don’t buy weapons from an opposing country trying to claim Canada as the 51st state

  29. Considering we’ve been trying to buy these fucking things for the last 20 years. Who gives a fuck at this point.

  31. F-35 never made much sense for the RCAF anyways. They need a platform for large area air defense, not a fighter optimized for strike in a contested environment. Two engines and a lot of range would be more appropriate. F-15EX, Typhoon or Rafale would probably be better platforms from a strictly utility standpoint. 

  32. Seems like a good idea, why buy military equipment from a country that wants to annex you.

  33. Watching from the inside how incompetent this process of procuring a new fighter has been for Canada, it’s not at all surprising that we are this late to the table “reconsidering” this purchase.

    Canada once had a chance to buy the euro fighter and have the rights to build them in Canada…. But feather tickler fancy socks didn’t want to do that

  34. I know the politicians are playing a somewhat delicate game right now trying to get this shit show to end

    but as a citizen I feel like they should just say fuck you and buy from Europe

  35. Probably not a good idea to buy a weapons platform your enemy could potentially just turn off mid fight.

    In fact, probably a good idea to buy one that doesn’t have a kill switch in the first place, you know how these things can leak after all…

  36. Destroying the MIC and driving allies into the arms of China to own the libs.

  37. Cancel it. Tube USA cannot be trusted. Build the Saab Gripen here in the great north. Elbows up

  38. Oh Christ, the circus continues. We’re never getting new fighter jets.

  39. Should’ve gone with the Saab JAS-39 Gripen but the US MIC and State Department turned the screws of diplomacy to get us to get the F-35 because “NATO” and “Closest Ally”.

    Saab was willing at the time to build two factories in Canada so the jet would be built in Canada and under our purview. But nope. Went with LM and all the bullshit tied to them. The F-35 might be a fine multirole jet, especially the STOVL variant itself is a wonder of engineering, but fuck everything American at this point. I won’t even buy ice cream made in that shit country.

  40. Boom, glad they are putting this on the table. Gripen would be a good alternative. Weakens US control and is a missed opportunity for Lockheed.

  41. Yea, I get it. You wouldn’t want weapon systems that could be shut down by your enemy…

  42. The future is swarms of cheap drones, not shit like this. Cancel the contract without mercy or regret.

  43. I like jets with no backdoor feature that can brick the aircraft.

  44. The U.S. has demonstrated they will arbitrarily refuse to honor their obligations under negotiated agreements.

    Because the U.S. can no longer be trusted to honor their commitments, any arms deal with them is pointless. Canada should buy from countries that are deserving of trust.

  46. Currently Canada is buying a significant defense asset from a country that is threatening their sovereignty, a defense asset that is known to have a kill switch that can be remotely activated by said country.

    What good is a defense asset that cannot be used to defend your country from the aggressor that is threatening you?

  47. America elected Trump.

    Trump is America.

    Trump has dishonored himself.

    You cannot conduct commerce or treaties when negotiating with dishonorable people.

    Full Stop.

  48. Good, rip this contract up, and try and get in on the 6th gen fighter program with Europe

  49. Not even counting the ongoing costs, a single one of them costs roughly 110 million dollars.

    You’re fucking *phone* has a kill switch.

    And you think that these don’t?

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