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PM unveiled new strategy without mentioning F-35 jet, spoke about establishing trade bloc excluding U.S.
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Published Feb 17, 2026 • 6 minute read
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Prime Minister Mark Carney makes an announcement at CAE Inc., in Montreal, on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. Photo by Christinne Muschi /THE CANADIAN PRESSArticle content
Mark Carney went to Montreal on Tuesday to announce a new push for defence spending.
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The prime minister was announcing Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy a week later than planned after his initial announcement was delayed due to the shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.
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Carney was supposed to make this announcement at a defence establishment in Halifax before jetting off to the Munich Security Conference, but the tragedy in British Columbia changed that. So a week later, after touring the facilities of flight simulation company CAE in Montreal, Carney unveiled the new strategy, spoke about establishing a trade bloc that excludes the United States and somehow escaped talking about the F-35 fighter jet program.
Prime Minister Mark Carney greets CAE Inc. employees following an announcement at their facilities in Montreal, on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. Photo by Christinne Muschi /THE CANADIAN PRESSDefence spending for Canadian companies
Standing at a podium with workers behind him, Carney announced that he would move to increase the amount spent on Canadian defence suppliers.
“We have committed to … double our defence expenditures by the end of this decade and that amounts to an additional $80 billion over the next five years,” Carney said.
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“In addition, as part of our NATO commitments, we will invest an additional $45 billion per year on domestic resilience, yielding both security and economic benefits. In total, over the next decade, Canada will invest $180 billion directly in defence procurement, $290 billion in defence- and security-related infrastructure and create over $125 billion in additional downstream economic benefits.”
According to a news release from the Prime Minister’s Office, this will have significant economic benefits.
“The Defence Industrial Strategy will create 125,000 high-paying careers, increase our defence exports by 50%, raise the share of defence acquisitions awarded to Canadian firms to 70% and grow Canadian defence industry revenues by 240%,” the news release said.
Even if the government misses the jobs and domestic investment by half, it will still be better than what we have been doing and for that they should be applauded. For far too long, Canada’s defence strategy has been completely decoupled from our industrial strategy.
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And if we are being honest, this is more of an industrial strategy than a defence strategy.
The Canadian Defence Industrial Strategy explained. Photo by Yoshio Kuramitsu /Toronto SunSpending on defence infrastructure, equipment
Over the next 10 years, the Carney government said it will spend an additional $180 billion on defence and security procurement, which includes equipment, vehicles, goods and services for the Armed Forces. In addition to that, they are promising $290 billion on military infrastructure, which includes 21,000 buildings, 11,740 military housing units, 5,500 km of roads and land for training and airfields.
Carney said that going forward, Canada’s defence procurement will favour Canadian companies through what he called a “build, partner, buy” program. If Canada can build what the military needs, then that will be the preferred route. Failing that, we will partner with another country and then, finally, we will buy what we cannot make or partner on.
Part of the strategy, said Carney, is “renewing our relationship with industry by providing clear long-term demand signals.”
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Right now, Canadian industry won’t invest in defence products because as a country we won’t buy enough and we’ve been shy about allowing export permits over the last 10 years or so.
“At the heart of this strategy is an objective to increase our defence exports by 50%,” Carney said when asked about the issue.
It’s another example of Carney walking away from a bad Justin Trudeau policy that only hurts our economy. There are so many other areas where Carney could walk away and let’s hope he does more of this.
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Carney leading anti-Trump trading bloc
If you were to listen to the media, Carney would be the anti-Donald Trump, the hero of the left. In some ways, our PM probably relishes the idea, but he’s also smart enough to know that pushing too hard against the U.S. president is bad for Canadian workers who rely on exporting their products stateside.
Not that any of this has stopped Carney from leaning into anti-Trump or anti-American sentiment for polling or electoral gain.
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An article from Politico that came out several days ago took on a new life over the weekend. It claimed that Carney wants to lead a merger of the European Union and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership trading blocs into a 39-country, 1.5-billion population trading bloc that will dwarf the United States.
It’s being championed by Democrats in the U.S. and criticized by Trump supporters – so it will no doubt catch the eye of Trump himself.
“Carney constructs a mega anti-Trump trade alliance,” says the headline.
The subhead goes even further in linking this push to Carney’s World Economic Forum speech in Davos, Switzerland, that was a source of friction between Carney and Trump, though it bolstered Carney’s poll numbers.
“The Canadian prime minister is spearheading discussions between the EU and a major Indo-Pacific trade bloc after calling on middle powers to join forces,” it says.
Canadian exports by country in 2024. Photo by Yoshio Kuramitsu /Toronto SunDiversifying trade will take decades
Except, it’s not exactly true, at least not the way it is being portrayed. Even Carney agrees with that.
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“It’s been hiding in plain sight. It’s something I’ve been talking about for six months. I mentioned it in the Davos speech as well as one of the elements that were part of this variable geometry,” he said.
That’s all well and good, but the original political article reads like a Team Carney-planted story that will leave Americans wondering why they should trade with us just as the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement comes up for renewal. For all those wondering, if you add up the annual exports that Canada sends to China, the United Kingdom, Japan and Mexico – our next biggest trading partners – it amounts to just 13% of our exports overall.
Now, Carney wants to expand our trade with the EU and the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the point that it exceeds our American trade. If that were to ever happen, it wouldn’t take place until decades from now, long after Trump has left office.
We need to expand trade, but to pretend it can happen quickly is foolhardy.
More than a decade ago, Canada entered into a free-trade deal with the EU. Today, 10 of the 27 EU member states have yet to ratify the agreement and the main sticking point is agriculture, specifically dairy.
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Our total exports to the EU in 2024 amounted to about $45 billion for the full year compared to about $1.6 billion per day to the United States.
The U.S. Navy F-35C Lighting II Demonstration Team performs at the Atlanta Air Show at Atlanta Regional Airport, Sunday, May 23, 2021, in Peachtree City, Ga. Photo by Danny Karnik /APF-35 was strangely not on the menu
Whatever Canadians may feel or think about the U.S., there is no easy way to replace our current trading relationship with them. Carney can go around the world trying to sign all the trade deals he wants, but we aren’t ready to break ranks with what we have.
Europeans aren’t going to buy our heavy oil, they won’t buy our lumber for home building, they won’t buy our autos or livestock. Perhaps they will buy our liquefied natural gas and Trans-Pacific Partnership countries may buy more of our pork, our canola or our seafood, but the products the Americans buy in bulk – beef, autos, oil, steel and aluminum – the others will not buy.
We not only need a diversification of who we sell to, but also what we sell.
One of the things that Carney didn’t speak about was the government’s ongoing review of its decision to buy 88 F-35 fighter jets. Sweden has made a pitch to have Canada buy Saab’s fourth-generation Gripen fighter jet instead of the F-35 fifth-generation stealth jet.
Canada has been part of the program since 1997.
To scupper the more than 3,000 direct jobs that are due to Canada being part of the F-35 program would be beyond foolish. Let’s hope that as Carney considers the total jobs from defence that he decides those attached to the F-35 are worth keeping.
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