On January 9, 2023, the Government of Canada officially announced the signing of an agreement with the US government and Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney on the acquisition of 88 fifth-generation Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighters for the Canadian Air Force. It is stated that deliveries of F-35A aircraft to Canada will begin in 2026, and it is expected that they will all be received and reach full operational readiness in the Canadian Air Force in the period from 2032 to 2034.
Image of Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighters in Canadian Air Force (c) Lockheed Martin paintThe agreement, apparently, was concluded by Canada through the American program of intergovernmental foreign Military sales (Foreign Military Sales - FMS).
The total cost of the program for the purchase of 88 F-35A aircraft (which will receive the Canadian designation CF-35A), including weapons, related equipment, spare parts, technical support and training, as well as infrastructure construction, is estimated by the Canadian government at 19 billion Canadian dollars (about 14.2 billion US dollars).
Earlier, on March 28, 2022, the Government of Canada announced the selection of the American F-35A fighter in a tender under the Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP) program for the purchase of 88 fighters to replace the existing fleet of Boeing CF-18 Hornet (CF-188A/B, aka F/A-18A/B) in the Canadian Air Force.
Thus, the long and predetermined epic of Canada's choice of F-35 fighters ended from the very beginning. Recall that Canada has been a third-level international partner in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF - the future F-35) fighter development program since 1997, having invested a total of $613 million in this program over 24 years. In 2010, the conservative government of Canada announced a decision to purchase at least 65 F-35A aircraft under this partnership to replace CF-18 fighters, with deliveries starting in 2016. However, these plans were strongly criticized in Canada for political and financial reasons, and in 2011 the Canadian government announced its refusal to purchase the F-35A on an out-of-competition basis. In 2015, the Liberal Party of Canada, led by Justin Trudeau, won the election, including with a program requirement to hold a "fair tender" for the purchase of new fighter jets.
In 2017, the Trudeau government launched a tender under the FFCP program, but the Canadian tender was considered fictitious from the very beginning, since, according to general opinion, the choice of the F-35A was actually predetermined anyway, especially since both government circles and the leadership of the Canadian Air Force spoke in favor of this aircraft. In 2018, a preliminary version was released, and in July 2019, the final version of the Request for Proposals (RFP) for FFCP was released. After the appearance of the preliminary version of the RFP, the French company Dassault Aviation refused to participate in the competition with the Rafale fighter, and after the appearance of the final version of the RFP, the BAE Systems corporation withdrew its offer with the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter. Both of these manufacturers accused the RFP drafters of being directly biased and openly adapting the requirements for the F-35A aircraft.
After that, in addition to the F-35A itself, only Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and Saab JAS-39E/F Gripen NG fighters took part in the FFCP tender. On December 1, 2021, it was announced that only the F-35A and JAS-39E/F Gripen NG were included in the shortlist of the tender, after which the outcome of the competition was predetermined. At the same time, Canada did not conduct any comparative tests between competing aircraft.
Currently, the Canadian Air Force has 93 CF-18A/B Hornet (F/A-18A/B) fighters, 18 of which are former Australian F/A-18A/B aircraft purchased after their decommissioning from the Australian Air Force and received by Canada in 2019-2021. The Canadian Air Force itself in 1982-1988 received 138 CF-18 fighters (98 single and 40 double), of which only 75 original aircraft remain in service (20 aircraft were lost in flight accidents and 43 were written off due to resource or "cannibalization" for spare parts). Canadian CF-18A/Currently, they are part of a total of five tactical squadrons of the squadrons (including one combat training) of the 3rd (Bagotville Air Base) and 4th (Cold Lake Air Base) wings of the Canadian Air Force.
Canada became the 16th foreign customer of the F-35 fighter (taking into account Turkey, excluded from deliveries). According to Lockheed Martin, as of January 9, 2023, a total of more than 890 F-35 aircraft were operated in the United States and nine other countries worldwide.