TORONTO—Congratulations to Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals on securing their majority.

Now, please, please, pick a fighter jet already. No one can stop you! 

This isn’t the first time I’ve made this exact plea in these very pages. It was just last September that I begged the prime minister to get around to picking a jet to replace the CF-18s that are now older than me, and very much to my own surprise, I am no longer young. 

Canada has committed to its initial purchase of 16 F-35s and has begun payments on the next 14. That’s a total of 30 either confirmed or semi-confirmed out of a planned total purchase of 88 replacement jets.

But while we’re moving ahead with the first 30, we’re dragging our heels on the remaining 58. Officially, the entire project is under review. The real explanation is that, given the bonkersification of the United States and the deep unpopularity of U.S. President Donald Trump in this country, there are practical and political risks to moving ahead with a full purchase of expensive American military hardware at this time. It would give the erratic U.S. president leverage over us in trade talks, and it would, simply put, look awkward for the PM.

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Because of this, we’re … huh. You know what? I don’t know what we’re doing. Proceeding entirely on inertia, in some demonstration of the political version of Newtonian physics? A procurement in motion stays in motion, even while under review?

The entire thing has begun to remind me of the Huawei review. Remember that? Canada’s allies didn’t want us letting Chinese companies and technologies into our 5G cellular networks for cybersecurity reasons, but Canada didn’t want to anger China by kicking them out, so we just … reviewed it indefinitely. The telecos couldn’t risk installing huge amounts of Huawei tech into their networks that might later be deemed a security risk, so they went with other providers. Ottawa was therefore able to essentially avoid making a decision; we just let bureaucratic delay and political cowardice make it for us. It was an almost perfect encapsulation of how dysfunctional this country has become. 

Is that how we’re going to replace the CF-18s? Is the Huawei decision, rather than an example of a country that can’t get things done, now in fact a model for how this government wants to get things done? Will we refuse to make any decision until one day we wake up and are shocked to discover 88 F-35s are now in Canadian service? Will senior Liberals shrug helplessly and say, “Hey, we didn’t want to buy these planes, but by the time we were ready to stop the order, it was too far along?”

I’m cynical enough to believe they’d try exactly that. But I don’t quite think that’s what’s going on, since Canada is clearly negotiating with Sweden’s Saab about the possibility of purchasing and potentially even producing their Gripen fighter jet. I support this! I’ve long been on the record in saying that the planned 88 jet fleet is way too small for a country of Canada’s size and international commitments, and that’s especially true now that the world seems to be rapidly slide back into the kind of state of affairs we hoped to have consigned to the history books. A bunch of F-35s and an even larger order of the less expensive Gripens is my preferred option and I hope that’s where Ottawa is heading, too. (Tens of thousands of drones would be nice, too. We should ask Ukraine about that!)

But this requires actual political leadership. We cannot take seriously Liberal claims that they intend to build at speeds not seen in generations when Ottawa can’t seem to make major procurement decisions in anything less than generations. There are a lot of factors beyond a government’s control that can slow down a procurement, but the one thing that is absolutely and entirely in its control is actually making the final call.

It’s time for Canada to pick a jet—or a mix of jets—and get it done. Our pilots deserve it, and given the state of the world, the country may need it.

Carney has a majority now. He can essentially do what he wants. I hope this is near the top of his list.

Matt Gurney is a Toronto-based journalist. He is co-editor of The Line (ReadTheLine.ca), an online magazine. He can be reached at matt@readtheline.ca.

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