LILLEY: Carney set to buy Swedish Gripen jet, and then what?

Will Canada buy all 88 F-35 jets if it buys the Gripen or walk away from the bulk of the order?

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Published Jun 16, 2026  •  3 minute read

Royal Norwegian Air Force F-35s and a Swedish Air Force Saab Gripen fly with a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber during joint operations over Europe in June 2024. Photo by U.S. AIR FORCE /MINOT AIR FORCE BASE

The Gripen fighter jet built by Sweden’s Saab has lost whatever open competition the Canadian military has held between it and the F-35. Despite this, the Carney government appears set to announce that it will buy the Gripen.

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The leadership of the Royal Canadian Air Force, the leadership at the Department of National Defence, and Defence Minister David McGuinty all back proceeding with the planned purchase of 88 F-35 fighter jets.

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Yet, for political rather than military reasons, the Carney government is expected to announce shortly that Canada will pivot to buy the Swedish-made Gripen jet. While Minister McGuinty supports the military in their plans to purchase the F-35, Industry Minister Melanie Joly and Stephen Fuhr, the former fighter pilot turned point man for Carney on defence procurement, back the Gripen.

Joly supports buying the Gripen due to a combination of anti-Americanism and a desire to try and get Saab to build the Gripen in Montreal. The claim is that building the Gripen here will create 10,000 jobs and yet Brazil’s efforts to build the Gripen at home has barely created 200 jobs.

The F-35 on the other hand already sustains thousands of jobs in this country as Canadian parts are put into every single plane deployed.

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Fuhr on the other hand has been described by multiple sources as a man who simply hates the F-35 and has never liked the fifth-generation stealth aircraft. Ottawa insiders say that as of late, it’s Fuhr who has Carney’s ear and that he’s been going around McGuinty’s back to poison the well with Carney on the F-35.

Meanwhile, throughout this process, senior leadership at National Defence has been frozen out of not only the decision-making process, but also the conversations around what should happen next.

F-35 scores far better

When the F-35 has been ranked against the Gripen by Canadian officials, the F-35 has won time and again. Late last year, CBC obtained an internal DND document showing that when rated head-to-head, the F-35 got a score of 57 out of 60 while Saab’s Gripen scored 19 out of 60.

As for being able to handle running two types of fighter jets, the RCAF is short of both pilots and maintenance techs. Adding more complexity by adding a new plane won’t help.

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When it comes to modern fighter jets, the F-35 has no comparison in its technical or war fighting capabilities. The opposition to the jet is based solely on politics and always has been.

Yet this is a jet that was developed by Canada, the United States and other NATO allies over decades. Canada signed onto what was called the Joint Strike Fighter Program in 1997 to work with other allies to develop the next generation of fighter jet.

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Political football

Starting in 2008, when the Harper Conservatives were in power, the Liberals, who had originally committed Canada to the program, turned against it. The F-35 has been a political football now for close to 20 years with Canada committing to buy it, then review it, then buy it, then review it.

Now, it appears that the Carney government wants to ensure they announce that they will be buying Gripen jets ahead of the Farnborough International Airshow taking place in Britain in July. At that event it is expected that the Carney government will also commit Canada to joining the Global Combat Air Programme, a plan by Britain, Italy and Japan to build a sixth-generation fighter jet with allies.

Given how we have acted over the last 29 years in the fifth-generation program, it’s a wonder they would want us.

The part that isn’t clear amid all the speculation that the Carney government will announce that they will buy the Gripens is whether they will stick with the full 88 F-35 jets originally planned or tap out at the 30 currently on order.

Either way, there will be consequences that Canadians have not been told about.

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