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They use CF-18 hornets, The C denotes "Canadian version". Canada has 335 of them, half of which are mothballed and half again or the remainder need serious upgrading to be compatible with NATO requirements.
Canada does do a lot of shared work with the USA, in fact on any given day it's not always an American F-18 you see patroling over Eastern American territory, it's a Canadian one. Sept 11, there were alot of Canadian cf18's on the scene, the commander in charge of the JTF at the time was also a Canadian. They do a lot more with us than you know.

Doesn't the "C" stand for "cargo" and the "F" for "fighter"? What's a cargo fighter?

Probably to prevent confusion with the American F-18C. Typically, an aircraft built for an allied nation has the letter appended AFTER the main designation. IE. an F-15J is basically an American F-15C Eagle, built for export to Japan. F4G Phantoms are operated by Germany.

'C' for Canada would create too much confusion if it were used in the usual location. Most aircraft types eventually get to a 'C' model.

I think the "C" stands for "we can't make them ourselves, so we bought these from below the 49th parallel, but we have way too much pride to ever actually admit that we can't make them anymore, so we'll buy them, paint fake canopy outlines on the bottom (they really did this!), and rename them with a 'C' for 'Canada' in front." I think the Canadian Forces have done that with every single aircraft they've bought from us for the past 40 years; the T-33 became the CT-133, the P-3 Orion became the CP-140 Aurora, the RF-101 Voodoo became the CF-101, etc.

Interestingly enough, Canada did, and does, have a pretty decent aircraft industry. After Avro went belly-up, de Havilland Canada produced a long line of fantastic short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft (Beaver, Otter, Caribou, Twin Otter, and the Dash-7), at least one of which (the Caribou) flew with the US Army in Vietnam. The Dash-8 is a reasonably successful turboprop airliner, and the Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ-200, CRJ-700, CRJ-900) is the mainstay of a lot of regional jet fleets for carriers like Delta Connection. But they got out of the military aircraft industry when the cancellation of the Arrow put Avro under.

}:-)4

... up there they call 'em CF-18s ... Doesn't the "C" stand for "cargo" and the "F" for "fighter"? What's a cargo fighter? The Canadian Forces use "CF" in front of their fighter designations to indicate it's operated by the Canadian Forces, or made in Canada. I recall that for many years the CF-86 Sabre was a commonly-used version; the Pakistani Air Force used them to good effect in the 1965 war with India.