MILAN \u2014 Canada is expected to officially join the British-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) as an observer, according to multiple reports, in a move that marks a strategic effort to bolster European defense ties while Ottawa assesses its long-term fighter jet alternatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Politico first reported<\/a> the news on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources, stating that the agreement will be announced on July 21 in London, where country officials are expected to meet as the Farnborough International Airshow takes place.<\/p>\n According to the Politico report, as an observer, Ottawa would not actively participate in the various contracts for the next-generation fighter program, but could gain access to the project\u2019s sensitive information, and it may contribute flight-simulation training technology.<\/p>\n A UK government spokesperson did not confirm the development but told Breaking Defense that the country, alongside its program partners, remains \u201copen to others joining GCAP while keeping it on track and delivering future military capabilities.\u201d Representatives for Canada and other governments involved in the program did not respond as of press time or declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n Last month, Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty\u00a0spoke<\/a>\u00a0publicly for the first time about Ottawa\u2019s interest in the sixth-generation fighter jet program. At a meeting with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo, he said the country was \u201cinterested in learning more about\u201d the project and called it a \u201cpromising initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n While Canada previously confirmed its first order for 16 Lockheed Martin F-35s, it has spent the last year reviewing<\/a> its initial plans to acquire an additional 72 aircraft and has left open the possibility of a mixed fleet pairing the US aircraft with the Saab-made Gripen.\u00a0It remains unclear where a potential GCAP fighter acquisition could come into play.<\/p>\n Regarding force structure, Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned that Canada could have difficulty sustaining a multi-aircraft fighter force if it were to also include a sixth-generation fighter.<\/p>\n \u201cIts fleet is not that large and has sustainment issues in any case. Having two supply chains makes sustainment more difficult,\u201d he told Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n As for Canada\u2019s potential to provide flight simulation technology to the international program, the national leader in that space is CAE, which produces advanced multi-domain training systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n The International Flight Training School in Sardinia, Italy, relies on CAE\u2019s military flight simulators and cockpit replicas to help train pilots on the T-346 trainer jet. The Canada-based company is also one of the\u00a0key suppliers<\/a>\u00a0to the UK Ministry of Defense as a \u201cleading training systems integrator and synthetic training equipment provider.\u201d <\/p>\n The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this report. <\/p>\n A Coveted Status<\/p>\n The potential for Canada to gain GCAP status comes as another interested party, Saudi Arabia<\/a>, is still waiting in the wings.<\/p>\n Riyadh is reported<\/a> to be facing opposition from Tokyo, but one analyst said that including Ottawa is also a more straightforward proposition overall.<\/p>\n \u201cAs of now, Ottawa seems to want to pursue a purely observing status, while Saudi Arabia was probably seeking a more structural participation,\u201d said Federico Borsari, non-resident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. \u201cIt is fair to say that Canada presents fewer security and political integration problems, since it is a founding NATO member and already operates within established Western systems for classified information sharing and possesses a substantial aerospace industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Since becoming prime minister of Canada last year, Mark Carney has made a priority to diversify the country\u2019s military partners, amid a major economic rift with the US. He has actively positioned Ottawa as one of Europe\u2019s most sought-after defense-industrial partners and described Canada as \u201cthe most European of non-European countries.\u201d<\/p>\n Borsari highlighted that the decision to join the European fighter project shows that Canada is proactively seeking closer defense partnerships with the continent\u2019s major players to strenghten its defense industrial base and supply-chain away from procurement of US weaponry. The US is currently developing its own sixth-generation fighter, the F-47<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cGCAP would be the next step after the major submarine deal with Germany\u2019s TKSM<\/a> and the ongoing negotiation with Saab<\/a> for the GlobalEye,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In June, Canada became the first non-European country to gain access to the European Union\u2019s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) rearmament plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Canada is expected to officially join the British-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) as an observer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15848,366,18445,17,586,2080,44041,12351,10304,15247,5046,384,691,3533],"class_list":["post-132798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-air-force","tag-asia","tag-cae","tag-canada","tag-europe","tag-f-35","tag-farnborough-2026","tag-fighter-jet","tag-gcap","tag-global","tag-italy","tag-japan","tag-nato","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}