The F-35 aircraft and resistance to Canadian militarism

 

Two opposing trends are discernible in today’s Canada. On the one hand, there is the Canadian government’s increasing emphasis on militarism, especially under Prime Minister Mark Carney, through massive expenditure on the military-industrial complex in budget 2025, while cutting pretty much all other areas, and drafting plans for mobilizing more recruits into the military. But, on the other hand, there is growing resistance to militarization, including through protests and legislative efforts. A specific site of conflict between these trends is the F-35 aircraft.

The F-35 is a fighter jet, sold by the U.S. military behemoth, Lockheed Martin, at an astronomical cost (drawing criticism even from Elon Musk). Because of its technological capabilities, however, the F-35 promises to allow the United States and its military allies to maintain global dominance. In recent years, the aircraft has featured frequently in Israel’s bombing campaigns of Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. In April 2024, US General and Director of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program Office Donald Carpenter boasted that “every day, Israel puts between 35 and 39 F-35Is into the air”. But, as Science for the People Canada has carefully documented, the F-35 was also involved in earlier fatal attacks on the occupied Palestinian territories, including in May 2021, August 2022, and July 2024.

In Canada, the F-35 came into the news this past year following Carney’s call for a review of a deal, announced in January 2023, to purchase eighty eight F-35 planes, costing $19 billion. Since then, the process adopted seems to be aimed at delaying any decision. A group of bureaucrats were tasked with examining the plans and the military’s needs. They were to have completed this by the end of last summer but missed that deadline; in November 2025, the Minister of Defence refused to commit to a new timeline. The following month, the Globe and Mail announced that the Department of Defence plans to acquire “Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Small Diameter Bombs” that can be used in F-35s and other aircraft.

In parallel, there has been an increase in protests against the F-35, in large part because of public outrage against the genocide in Palestine. In the Gastops’ factory in Ottawa that produces engine sensors for the F-35, protestors “cut the wiring inside all of the heat pumps on the Gastops roof, locked them out with official Ministry of Health and Safety lock-out tags, shut off the gas, broke the handles for their systems, and cut the lines to their backup communication system on the way out”. That is just one example.  (more...)

The F-35 aircraft and resistance to Canadian militarism