F-35A, the variant Canada is purchasing, flys from Eielson, Alaska, to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in 2018. [Darin Russell/Lockheed Martin]

Canada’s connections to the F-35

STORY BY AARON KYLIE

“We are full steam ahead…focused on making sure we’ve got the infrastructure, the pilots, the training in place for the arrival of those F-35s,” Deputy Defence Minister Stefanie Beck told a House of Commons committee in early October 2025.

Despite more recent media speculation that Canada may abandon its $27.7 billion purchase of 88 of the fighter jets from U.S. defence company Lockheed Martin—seemingly sparked by mid-November discussions with Swedish government officials related to general military co-operation and the country’s Gripen aircraft built by Saab—details suggest the initial tranche of F-35s are still set to arrive as scheduled in 2028.

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Australian arimen attend a training school in Saskatchewan in 1942. [Australian War Memorial]

Historian Karl James on the Australian-Canadian wartime bond

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“In Australia, just as in Canada,” explained Karl James, head of military history at the Australian War Memorial, “there has been much political and popular discussion surrounding the stability and reliability of our great and powerful allies. Many of the assumptions and defence assurances that the western Allies have taken for granted in the years since the Second World War are being tested.”

The author and editor cited the works of his Canadian colleagues, Marc Milner’sSecond Front (2025) and the late Tim Cook’s The Good Allies (2024), as prime examples of recent discourse on such topics, notably within the context of Canada’s relationship with the U.S. and U.K.

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