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<\/p>\nThe team is scheduled to perform twice more at the Canadian International Air Show, hosted annually on the Toronto\u2019s lakeshore, over the Labour Day long weekend before heading to northern Ontario.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Pierre Gionet, an aviation enthusiast at the air show on Saturday, said the Snowbirds are a symbol of Canadian pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do stream a lot of air shows online and whenever the Snowbirds are there, I get a little feeling I don\u2019t get for the other acts,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
While Gionet has mixed feelings about the grounding of the Snowbirds, he said it\u2019s more important for the Canadian military to update its aging equipment than prioritize the air force\u2019s flight demonstration team. <\/p>\n
Sandy Seymour, an air show spectator decked out in a Snowbirds hat and shirt, said she\u2019s disappointed the federal government didn\u2019t find a way to replace the Snowbirds\u2019 jets without grounding them.<\/p>\n
She said the Canadian National Exhibition fair, whose final weekend coincides with the air show, won\u2019t be the same without the Snowbirds performing their high-flying stunts. She said it\u2019s a yearly tradition for her to go to the fair and watch the jets soar over the exhibition grounds.<\/p>\n
Seymour was joined by hundreds others on the CNE grounds who had their eyes and cameras trained to the sky as fighter jets dating from the Second World War to the modern day careened over the banks of Lake Ontario.<\/p>\n
Other air show demonstrations featured military and police aircraft and performances by civilian aviators, including a father-and-son duo piloting homebuilt planes.<\/p>\n
The exact timeline of the Snowbirds\u2019 return is unclear. Defence Minister David McGuinty said in May negotiations are underway with the manufacturer of the team\u2019s new Siskin jets. <\/p>\n
The Snowbirds have performed some 2,700 times in the Tutor jets since 1971, becoming staples of national events and celebrations.<\/p>\n
The Snowbirds\u2019 final show is set for Nov. 15 at the Grey Cup in Calgary.<\/p>\n
Canada rapidly increased its military spending last year before announcing the Snowbirds would be grounded.<\/p>\n
After years of criticism from allies, Canada met its NATO commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defense by shelling out over $63 billion on national security in 2025. <\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney has also said Canada will spend five per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, a commitment the NDP has criticized as an \u201cextraordinary\u201d sum better spent on affordable housing and healthcare. <\/p>\n
The commander of the Canadian Army, Lt.-Gen. Michael Wright, said earlier this year that the military will forge ahead with investments to modernize the Armed Forces, including purchasing new weapons and air defense systems and recruiting more soldiers.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Kathryn Mannie, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The team is scheduled to perform twice more at the Canadian International Air Show, hosted annually on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[214,286,280,287,279,281,282,116,283,284,285,49,48],"class_list":["post-197799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-breaking-news","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-sports","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197799","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=197799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}