{"id":27149,"date":"2026-06-24T11:03:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/27149\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:03:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:03:34","slug":"canada-in-talks-to-buy-about-30-italian-m-346-trainer-jets-for-rcaf-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/27149\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada in talks to buy about 30 Italian M-346 trainer jets for RCAF, sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A M-346 aircraft during a recent training flight.Fabrizio Troccoli\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

The Canadian government is in negotiations to buy about 30 Italian-made fighter-jet training aircraft and is sending a technical team to Rome later this week to discuss what may be one of Ottawa\u2019s biggest aerospace defence orders ever, two sources say. <\/p>\n

Any deal would almost certainly be a government-to-government sale, as opposed to a company-to-government one, the industry and government sources added. The M-346 trainer jets are made by Leonardo SpA, the Italian defence giant whose shares are listed on the Milan stock exchange. But the Italian state owns 30 per cent of Leonardo, giving Rome enormous influence over the company\u2019s management and export sales. <\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the potential deal.<\/p>\n

Canada and Italy announced last week that talks to buy the advanced, twin-engine trainers had started at the G7 Summit in \u00c9vian, France, where Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, met on the sidelines of the event. The two leaders discussed strengthening trade and investment ties in defence, critical metals and other areas. <\/p>\n

\u201cCanada and Italy are becoming increasingly close in defence and security,\u201d Mr. Carney\u2019s office said. \u201cLeveraging Italian expertise in aerospace and defence, this [M-346] agreement will enable the Royal Canadian Air Force to train in state-of-the-art equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

No details were given about the timing or value of the potential purchase or the number of aircraft under consideration. A fleet of 30 suggests that Canada urgently needs pilots who can fly the next-generation aircraft the government has on order. <\/p>\n

Neither Leonardo nor the Italian government would confirm that the Canadian technical team was headed to Rome or that the purchase was under discussion. Umberto Castronovo, the public affairs officer for the armaments directorate of the Italian Ministry of Defence, would only say that \u201cCanada and Italy have taken the first steps towards an eventual formal purchase of the M-346.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s Department of National Defence did not comment.<\/p>\n

Ottawa has been looking for an advanced jet trainer since 2014, when it retired its fleet of 17 British BAE CT-155 Hawks. The M-346 is a \u201clead-in\u201d trainer, meaning the pilots who are trained on it can go on to fly the most sophisticated fighter-bombers, including the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth jet.<\/p>\n

Canada has a firm order for 16 F-35s and has begun payments for an additional 14 aircraft. Ottawa is also considering the purchase of Swedish-designed Saab Gripen fighters<\/a>, which would be built in Canada for the RCAF and export customers, including, possibly, Ukraine. <\/p>\n

The M-346 is already used to train Canadian pilots. Canada\u2019s CAE \u2212 the world\u2019s biggest maker of flight simulators \u2212 and Leonardo train pilots of NATO countries and their allies at an Italian Air Force base in Sardinia. <\/p>\n

With Italian planes and Canadian VR, this elite flight school trains pilots in the art of combat<\/a><\/p>\n

In May, Leonardo secured the first sale of M-346s to a buyer in Canada. ITPS, a private company that trains civilian and military pilots from airports in London and North Bay, Ont., agreed to purchase six of the Italian jets, with options for another six. <\/p>\n

An M-346 typically sells for US$20-million to US$40-million, depending on options such as radar, missile aiming and reconnaissance packages. The price can be much higher if Leonardo adds maintenance contracts and training equipment, such as ground-based training simulators. <\/p>\n

Leonardo has sold more than 160 M-346s, which also come in a light combat version. The aircraft is used in 20 countries and has been selected by the Italian Air Force for its Frecce Tricolori national aerobatic team. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A M-346 aircraft during a recent training flight.Fabrizio Troccoli\/The Globe and Mail The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4293,4283,4294,1188,4276,1557,147,4275,4288,4289,4285,4277,4274,1131,4292,1294,4287,201,4305,4278,4279,3297,5,4284,1815,1333,4295,4281,4300,4301,4303,4298,4302,4296,4299,4280,3867,4291,356,4290,4297,3869,1138,614,4286,4282,243,4304],"class_list":["post-27149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-italy","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}