Canada and Italy have launched negotiations for the Royal Canadian Air Force to acquire Leonardo M-346 advanced jet trainers. The talks were opened by Mark Carney and Giorgia Meloni at the G7 summit in Évian, linking the aircraft to Canada’s effort to rebuild sovereign lead-in fighter training after the CT-155 Hawk fleet was retired.
The government says the M-346 would give the RCAF state-of-the-art training hardware and reduce reliance on overseas pipelines. No quantity, value, delivery schedule or contract award has been set, so the file remains at negotiation stage. Leonardo now has a direct path into Canada’s military training market, and the next milestone will be commercial terms, not political signaling.