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“Canadians know full well that for 10 years, the Conservatives completely missed the boat when it came to delivering to Canadians and their armed forces the equipment they needed,” Trudeau replied, also in French. “They clung to an aircraft (the F-35) that does not work and is far from working.”

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He went on to say the Canadian Armed Forces “cannot deliver on our commitments to NATO and NORAD. That is a problem we inherited, and we will solve.”

Trudeau’s comments were the strongest condemnation of the F-35 since the Liberals won the election. Cabinet ministers had tiptoed around the stealth fighter in recent months, prompting questions over whether the government was still committed to its election promise not to buy the plane.

In response to Trudeau’s comments, Lockheed Martin, the company building the F-35, said about 185 of the planes have been delivered to the U.S. and other countries. The U.S. Marines declared their F-35 fleet operational last year, the company added, while the U.S. Air Force is scheduled to do the same this year.

(The U.S. Air Force’s version of the F-35 is the type that Canada was planning to buy. The U.S. Marines operate a different version.)

Earlier in the day, reporters pressed Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan over whether the Liberal government was still planning to hold a competition to replace Canada’s aging CF-18s. Sajjan would say only that new jets are overdue, “and I want to make sure that I have all the right information before we make any decision.”