John Zerucelli and Stephen Fuhr arrive for a cabinet swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin TangJustin Tang/The Canadian Press
Former CF-18 fighter pilot Stephen Fuhr has been put in charge of an ambitious overhaul planned for Canada’s trouble-plagued military purchasing at a time when Ottawa is poised to ramp up defence spending by tens of billions of dollars.
Mr. Fuhr, a Liberal MP representing a B.C. Interior seat, was appointed Secretary of State responsible for defence procurement in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet unveiled Tuesday.
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Secretaries of state are akin to junior ministers who don’t normally attend cabinet meetings but are tasked with assisting ministers in a specific project or area of responsibility.
Mr. Fuhr has a big job ahead of him: transforming how Canada buys billions of dollars of military gear, from airplanes to ships to artillery. National Defence is already among the largest federal departments in terms of expenditures.
He will be trying to reform the system – long criticized as too slow and unwieldy – at a time when the Canadian government will be increasing defence expenditures by up to $20-billion a year.
The Carney Liberals have promised to buy submarines and additional heavy-duty icebreakers, and they have to decide whether to scale back Canada’s order of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets.
In the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist threats, Mr. Carney ordered a review of the 88-jet order, set to cost $19-billion, and whether Canada should only buy the 16-jet minimum and look elsewhere for alternative fighters that could deliver additional industrial benefits to this country instead of sending more dollars to the United States.
Mr. Fuhr was a major critic of the Harper government’s 2010 decision to buy the F-35 fighter and has said what he regarded as a bungled procurement helped prompt him to enter politics. The Liberals under former prime minister Justin Trudeau conducted a new competition and selected the F-35 in 2023.
During the election campaign, Mr. Carney promised to create a stand-alone defence purchasing agency to speed up military equipment procurement and prioritize buying Canadian gear and materials whenever possible.
The new procurement agency would prioritize the use of made-in-Canada equipment and raw materials such as steel, aluminum and critical minerals, Mr. Carney pledged during the campaign. He also promised to increasingly partner with Europe on defence as Canada seeks to strengthen ties with other allies in the face of Mr. Trump’s isolationism and a deteriorating relationship with the U.S.
Philippe Lagassé, a Carleton University associate professor whose research areas include defence policy and procurement, said the new government will have to decide to what extent Canada eschews U.S. military gear for European or Asian equipment instead.
Mr. Carney has also said that under defence purchasing reform, Ottawa would centralize decision-making on procurement and grant officials more discretion to waive procurement rules when necessary.
He said during the election campaign that his government would provide the defence buying agency “with greater powers and flexibility, so that there are exceptions, for example, with respect to the level of competition that’s required in terms of defence contracting, speed with which contracts can be struck,” and prioritization for “Canadian suppliers and the Canadian supply chain that’s going to deliver it.”
David Perry, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, a think tank, said he is skeptical about the chances of procurement reform but will wait to see whether Mr. Fuhr is empowered to make changes. He noted that former prime minister Stephen Harper appointed an associate minister of defence in 2011 to reform procurement, to little effect.
Mr. Carney has promised to increase defence spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product by 2030, two years faster than Mr. Trudeau had pledged. This would require about $20-billion more annually in new spending within five years.
The Prime Minister referenced his defence promises Tuesday, saying his government ”will build a stronger Canadian Armed Forces to defend every inch of our territory through unprecedented investments in land, air, sea and cyberspace.”
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Mr. Fuhr previously served as a Liberal MP between 2015 and 2019, and chaired the House of Commons defence committee for several years at the time.
As a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Mr. Fuhr served in multiple roles, including flight instructor, standards officer, CF-18 fighter pilot and fleet manager, according to a Liberal Party biography. He was also a qualified evaluator for North American Aerospace Defence Command and North Atlantic Treaty Organization fighter operations. He received a Chief of the Air Staff Commendation for leading a team tasked with re-establishing an Air Force Tactical Air Control capability to support Joint Task Force Afghanistan combat operations.