Canada pushes to join UK-Italy-Japan advanced fighter jet project

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Canada is lobbying to be admitted to the UK, Italy and Japan’s joint advanced fighter jet development programme, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Canada wants to participate in the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) as an “observer”, the people said, in its latest attempt to distance itself from the US and strengthen ties with other trading partners.

A Canadian government official told the FT that Ottawa’s efforts were part of its attempts to “diversify defence procurement and grow partnership with like-minded allies”. A formal request had been sent to the UK and letters to Japan and Italy would follow shortly, the official said.

Observer status would grant Ottawa access to certain confidential project information while it considered whether to participate as a buyer or joint development partner at a later stage, the people said.

The country’s entrance to the programme could be decided at a meeting in July. Officials familiar with the project said Canada’s admission was “highly likely” to be agreed, but that there had previously been division among the original trio over expanding the group.

Canada’s lobbying efforts come as the progress of GCAP has stumbled over concerns about UK funding amid delays to the country’s long-term defence spending strategy.

Officials in Tokyo and London said the “observer status” role had been devised to create a pathway into the multibillion-dollar GCAP for other nations that avoided a complicated and time-consuming process of expanding the core trio of Japan, UK and Italy. The programme is targeting first delivery in 2035.

GCAP was established in 2022 by the three nations in an effort to reduce their reliance on the US for F-35 fighters and strengthen sovereign control over technologies used in advanced aerial warfare systems.

Last week the three partner nations signed a £686mn contract for key engineering and design work with Edgewing, an industrial consortium consisting of national defence contractors, that runs to the end of June. The deal represented the funding dispensed by the trilateral entity.

This funding is a stopgap measure to give the UK time to deliver its 10-year defence investment plan before a larger, longer-term injection into Edgewing.

Two officials described Canada as “uncommitted at this stage” as either a buyer or a joint developer, but said it was interested for geopolitical reasons in a non-US project.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has spearheaded plans for Ottawa to boost defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035, the country’s biggest postwar military build-up, as US President Donald Trump upends an increasingly uncertain global security landscape.

Canada will take possession of 16 US-built F-35s over the coming years, but Carney has ordered a review on purchasing the remaining 72 due to tensions with the Trump administration.

Japanese officials have been reluctant to add partners to GCAP because of fears of additional delays. People familiar with the project said that the 2035 deadline would “in all likelihood” be missed.

But one person with knowledge of the project said that as financing issues and overruns become inevitable, the core trio would probably need to introduce at least six additional partners.

Other countries including Australia, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, Germany and others have been named by officials from the core trio as potentially interested in joining as buyers or in the development of the jet itself. Other programmes were also of interest to the countries, such as those for drones and training aircraft.

A UK defence ministry spokesperson said Britain, Japan and Italy “remain open” to other partners joining GCAP “while keeping on track with the programme schedule and delivering our future military capabilities”.

Japan’s defence ministry declined to comment about Canada’s potential involvement but said that “generally speaking, GCAP has been designed with our allies and parties at its very heart”.

Italy’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.