Canada Cannot Keep Stringing Saab Along

Saab Has Waited Long Enough

SAAB, the $36 billion Swedish aerospace and defence major, has been trying to pull Canada in as a partner for at least four years — roughly 62 months.

At the ALX Space 2021 conference, Saab put a concrete offer on the table: let us build a Saab sensor centre in Canada. It also asked a second question just as directly — would Canada buy 88 Gripens?

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It is clear that for years, Saab did not see the green light.

Then things began to turn. As relations with the United States deteriorated and PM Carney came to power, Sweden arrived in Canada in force — the king, the queen, and a large delegation of Swedish business leaders and government officials. It was a full-spectrum pitch from Stockholm: the world is on fire, so why not build something together?

They were not hiding their intentions. There was no need to. They had been clear about them for years. Sweden’s message was simple: we can build more together, and we can build it in Canada.

Why build them in Canada?

Because that is how you lock in a real partner for the next-generation fighter jet race.

Nobody does this by simply showing up one day and asking for orders. You build industrial roots first. You co-produce. You transfer pieces of the ecosystem. You create jobs, supply chains, political buy-in, and long-term dependence in both directions. That is how a country stops being just a customer and starts becoming part of the build-out.

And building a next-generation fighter jet is brutally hard. Just ask France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. These are not small economies fumbling around the edges. These are top-tier industrial states with money, talent, and decades of aerospace experience. And even they have struggled to move cleanly into the next phase.

Germany and France are still stuck in the half-fighting, half-talking phase over FCAS. I hope they find a way through, but the odds do not look great.

And look at who we are talking about here. Germany is set to spend hundreds of billions on defence over the coming years. France built the Rafale, one of the most sophisticated combat aircraft on the planet. Yet even with all that industrial depth, the next-generation fighter path is proving difficult to hold together.

So yes, it makes perfect sense that Sweden wants a serious partner. And it makes perfect sense that it wants Canada.

At the beginning, you need more than engineering ambition. You need a country that will actually buy the aircraft, place domestic orders, and help underwrite the development path. That is how these programs survive their early years. Sweden and Canada, together, could keep ordering enough jets to give SAAB the room to scale into the next generation and sustain the program through its most difficult phase.

Then comes the export logic. A Canadian-Swedish jet carries a different appeal in the global market. It is not locked inside a single-country political chain. It suggests more transparency, more balance, and less fear that the entire program could one day be held hostage by the moods of one capital.

Sweden is right. Canada is a strong choice.

But no one waits forever.

After a certain point, even a patient courtship starts to look like drift. And that is the position Canada now finds itself in. It is an uncomfortable one. NORAD has structurally pulled Canada deep into the American weapons ecosystem, and the Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that it wants nothing flying over Canada except its own F-35s.

There are trade negotiations underway. Washington may never need to say, order SAAB and we will make your life harder. That is almost beside the point. It is already embedded in the atmosphere. That is how they operate.

If Canada is going to keep dragging its feet on Gripen, there is still a way to keep the Saab option alive — and to do it without making an immediate fighter decision.

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Start with Saab’s other products. GlobalEye is the obvious one. Saab is already pitching it for Canada’s airborne early warning and control program, and the company is framing it not as a foreign bolt-on but as a platform that combines Swedish systems with Canadian industrial value, built around Bombardier’s aircraft base. Saab has also spent years trying to establish a deeper sensor footprint in Canada, including its earlier proposal for a Saab Sensor Centre in Vancouver focused on radar and related technologies.

That is the path Ottawa should take if it wants more time.

Do not treat Saab as only a Gripen file. It is not. Saab’s business runs across aeronautics, surveillance, advanced weapons, and naval systems. Canada does not need to jump straight to the center of the board. It can move around the edges first — surveillance, sensors, command-and-control, other systems where the political cost is lower but the industrial relationship becomes real.

Circle by circle, that is how you build toward the center.

Because right now this is starting to look ugly. Sweden has spent years making its case. If Canada wants more time on Gripen, then it needs to prove that the relationship is not going nowhere. Order something else. Help Saab manufacture it in Canada. Give the company revenue, industrial roots, and a reason to keep viewing Canada as a serious long-term partner.

At the end of the day, Saab is a public company. It does not run on sentiment. It runs on orders, backlog, and strategic position. Canada does not need to make the biggest decision immediately.

But it does need to make one decision now.

Place an order. Build the foothold. Keep the Gripen door open, and with it, keep open a path into the next-generation fighter build-out.

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