Because certain crowds on the Internet have, for years, championed the Gripen as some sort of revolutionary, rugged and capable fighter of the Western Bloc. Even though it's actually not that special, expensive to procure and the fighter of the Western Bloc is the F-16/F-35. These people, a distinct sort of people, have for whatever reason done more marketing for Saab for free than Saab has ever done for themselves.
Meanwhile the Rafale as secured export orders with a multitude of countries from all sorts of global alignments and remained attractive because it has, unlike Saab, zero association to the US and UK and because Dassault/the French MIC has (unlike Saab) always prioritized independence and attractiveness on the export market. Which is why Mirages and Rafales fly in all corners of the world and why Sweden has like a single Gripen E.
Anyone who genuinely believes Canada would drop the F-35 for the Gripen over mean tweets from a temporarily elected official is beyond naive and quite possibly genuinely delusional. It's exhausting that this shit has even taken a hold in this forum beyond YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and TikTok.
So there are a few things which are worth considering EmoBirb.
I'll explain a bit of the political situation:
(1) The American President (and to some extent the Vice President) has expressed a desire to annex Canada, has repeatedly called into question whether our country is sovereign.
(2) The American ambassador has met with separatists (including some who were previously implicated in an attempt to overthrow the government).
(3) The American government has launched a trade war with stated demands to prevent it including Canada violating its Constitutional requirements to protect the French language and Canada giving up sovereignty over foreign trade (making us entirely dependent on U.S. trade and foreign policy in economic matters).
There are all objective facts (I can provide evidence for all of them if necessary). The Canadian response is also an objective fact.
Now here is the key point:
At any time the Republican representatives in Congress and the Senate could have stopped this. If even a handful of them could have done so.
So think about what that looks like from a Canadian perspective - it is not a single politician, but an entire political party cooperating with policies explicitly stated as having the goal of removing your country from existence... policies they could stop if they wanted to.
The result is that, even if the U.S. government changes soon it'll take years (perhaps decades) for many Canadians to feel that they can trust that the U.S. government isn't more than one election away from becoming hostile.
I think it is important for everyone to realise, including Republicans, that this is simply the way a lot of Canadians will see this. Regardless of who you support politically, this is the reality of the situation. I'm writing this out mainly because a lot of Americans, and a lot of people Internationally, may not be aware of these factors.
Then we come to question of procurement strategy:
What capability would we lose that we actually need in a foreseeable deployment?
Canadian requirements need to be understood to be similar to naval requirements - for practical purposes most of the Canadian North may as well be ocean (e.g. in terms of resupply, search and rescue)... and one needs to think in terms of operating from airfields that can go below minus 38 degrees centigrade. What is the readiness of the F-35 in Artic conditions operating out of short strips?
(Note: Many of the older generation in Canada would strongly prefer a twin engine design - but the F-35 isn't particularly winning on that count either).
Reduced overall costs of the JAS-39 would allow reserving more funds for buying into FCAS and procuring drone/counter-drone capabilities. At the same time the Gripen could act as a 'bridging' procurement to maintain our manned fighter aircraft capability.
Whereas the U.S. Ambassador threatened Canada with 'consequences' if we didn't buy the F-35, the Swedish proposal offers a technology transfer and a factory - things which would build our economic capability and ties with potential buyers in Europe (and potential for even pivoting towards selling non-ITAR compliant products someday - which could open up global sales if relations with the United States were to continue to decline).
As you can see, the F-35 has many benefits - but it isn't like there isn't a compelling case for the JAS-39 as well... both have considerable merits.
