now that gov support is there its up to the Canadian workers and our industry leaders to pick up the ball and run with it. god speed and get your asses in gear folks. you have one chance to take advantage and make it good and right. show the world what Canada is made of!
This can also apply to choosing to build Saab Gripen jets in Canada, instead of “leasing” any more F-35s built in Texas.
Yes, Saab Gripen for Canada.
- Why buy defence hardware from an unstable vendor that has TWICE-elected a leader who is hostile to its NORAD partner?
Current US president got multinational Stellantis to fold like a cheap suit so how secure are any Canadian jobs that depend on US-based LockheedMartin?
US has some unresolved issues -- current president was elected not once but _TWICE. Upcoming elections will still include the voters that put him in office so it might be some time -- if ever -- before US returns to friendliness of past generations.
- Saab wants to expand its Gripen production. Saab wants to _build modern Gripens under license in Canada, which would keep defence spending in Canada, flowing to Canadian workers, companies and suppliers.
"Under license" means manufacturing is done at home and Saab gets a license fee for its blueprints, etc.
Building jets under license was a multiplier for Canada in the past. Canadair used to build Canada's fighter jets (CF-86, CF-104, CF-5) under license in Canada. Canadair had even improved upon the CF-86 by replacing its US-built GE engine with the better-performing Canadian-built Avro Orenda engine.
The multiplier: Canadair then also _created the Tutor (Snowbirds), the Challenger, the CRJ, the CL-415 "super scooper" water bomber.
The multiplier keeps working: Saab GlobalEye AWACS, just bought by France, uses Bombardier Global 6500 airframes -- airframes evolved directly from the CRJ ( Canadair Regional Jet ); the CL-415 "super scooper" is now in much demand for fighting wild fires and it's being updated as the DHC-515.
If we “buy” fighters from Texas, we don’t actually own anything.
We’re leasing hardware from a vendor whose politics change every four years.
That’s not defence.
That’s dependence.
Meanwhile Saab is literally offering to build Gripens here under license.
That means...
• Canadian factories
• Canadian workers
• Canadian suppliers
• Canadian control
Money stays here. Skills stay here. Jobs stay here.
And history already proved it works.
Canadair built fighters under license before... and that knowledge snowballed into the Bombardier Aerospace jets, the water bombers, the regional planes.
That’s what manufacturing does.
It multiplies.
Buying finished toys from someone else?
That just multiplies invoices.
If your supplier can turn hostile overnight, they’re not a partner.
Well, Detroit responds to change by building yesterday’s cars and whining at Japan for not buying them. Canada can build the cars of tomorrow. Competition can be all right.
Subsidies are always a gamble that may or may not payoff. There are a number of gambles that did not payoff like Northvolt in Quebec that received millions in subsidy and many other advantages to build a battery factory in Quebec that never materialize, Stelantis and GM received loans/subsidies to maintain auto (EV) production in Canada but decided to stop or move production to the USA are a few recent examples. I don’t know how successful this last round of subsidies will fare. I hope they will do better but I’m a bit skeptical that they will generate the returns expected.
US manufacturers have a history of pulling back easily, taking off with Canada's subsidy money. Hopefully this time they get bitten back. Japanese and Korean manufacturers have demonstrated a different approach. Now that they've been burnt by the US government, they see even more the difference witl Canada about creating and honouring mutually beneficial deals instead of practicing an extraction economy.
As for Northvolt, apparently the company was already struggling in Norway. The government that opened them the door has failed at almost any of its projects because of a lack of vision about economy and its ever stubborn refusal to consult experts on anything. Unfortunately, an accountant is not the same as an economist and we are paying the price for this lesson.
Legault also sank a lot of money in the Lion Électrique bus company. He almost killed it too. They were doing fine with their school buses but Legault wanted an economic success to brag about compared to Ontario, so instead of doing some research and finding good projects, he decided to throw hundreds of millions at Lion to develop an electric truck faster than they could.
Company leaders wanted the money but were not ready to grow that fast. Trucks were scraped together frantically and sent out the door without proper parts and built. Many were defective and had to be brought back in.
We have their school buses here in Montreal. They seem to run fine, but you can't make a plant grow faster by pulling on it, the same with an enterprise apparently.
And again, an accountant acting arbitrarily doesn't get the same results as an economist studying a situation and planning development based on factual knowledge of the different economic factors.
If Trump lived in the world where horse and buggy were being replaced by automobiles, he would be introducing tariffs to protect the bridle and whip makers.
That you for the information. It's excellent. It's long past the point of all the integration that may have worked at one time but hasn't for over a year. I'm very happy our PM and government is standing up and saying "enough is enough"!
I would like the Grippen's agreement signed with Saab and for Canadian to start building our own aircraft's that we control the maintenance on(especially plus who controls the computer systems)
I saw an interview on TV and the pilot said that they would rather have the F 35 because it's just like "heaven flying them. "But they don't think about the cost and how many times they break down.
The Swedish Saab's have been built to work in the Arctic and right now and for the foreseeable future what we need to do is protect the Arctic and the shorelines into the Arctic.
I have a granddaughter whose work puts her in those military planes and I would really like to know that the one she's flying in is going to be safely made, and protected under Canadian law.
A number of commentators have made the points about the ability of the Gripen to take off from roads instead of runways, to function with small crews, to require less maintenance, and less specialized facilities. They are all correct. The thing that makes these important is not usually mentioned however, and that is the ability to survive a pre-emptive attack. Sweden's intention is to be able to fight after such a strike, presumably by their large and unfriendly neighbour Russia, wipes out Sweden's established airbases and supporting infrastructure. The key word is dispersal. You can't hit what you can't find. We have a larger area than Sweden to hide in between enemy strikes, and new "bases" (i.e. a stretch of road, a building large enough to house one or two aircraft, buried fuel tanks, and a couple of dozen support people and crew) can be created relatively quickly and cheaply. Having a force of aircraft built, and solely supported by, your current biggest threat is a bad idea for numerous reasons. The famous "off switch" may not exist and would not even be necessary. If the supplier has malign intent, they would only need to know where the aircraft is located on the ground. A "beacon" or other method for interrogating the aircraft would do the job. They are designed to talk to each other, so... Stealth would be irrelevant in that scenario. Just sayin'
Please auto industry follow along with Canada and do things right!! Canadians will support you all the way . Pay Attention to what the government is setting in place to support your business Plan!!
This is one of those moments where the opportunity is sitting right in front of us.
Government support.
Investment on the table.
Policy finally pointing the same direction as industry.
Now it’s just execution.
If the auto sector leans in... builds here, hires here, sources here... Canadians will absolutely back them. We always do when companies show they’re serious about staying rooted in Canada.
Nobody expects miracles.
Just commitment.
Build it here.
Employ Canadians.
Stop chasing the cheapest border.
That’s how you get loyalty and profits.
Feels like common sense… which usually means it’s the right move. 😄
So now we will be at a 103 billion to the foreign-owned automotive industry who at any time can get up and leave because they don't have any money into it it's our dollars the taxpayers.
Perhaps it’s just lucky coincidence, but LG and Hyundai have plants in the U.S. but are not in a position to expand production there at this time. So we may have just got them in a “gotchya” moment. Hopefully this will be translated into a long term commitment well into the century. Just wish there was an opportunity to develop the IP that goes into automotive development with a domestic design house.
now that gov support is there its up to the Canadian workers and our industry leaders to pick up the ball and run with it. god speed and get your asses in gear folks. you have one chance to take advantage and make it good and right. show the world what Canada is made of!
Government support buys time.
Workers create results.
This is the moment where we either build…
or complain.
I know which one Canadians are better at.
“We can't control Washington's tantrums.
But we can control what we build at home.”
This can also apply to choosing to build Saab Gripen jets in Canada, instead of “leasing” any more F-35s built in Texas.
Yes, Saab Gripen for Canada.
- Why buy defence hardware from an unstable vendor that has TWICE-elected a leader who is hostile to its NORAD partner?
Current US president got multinational Stellantis to fold like a cheap suit so how secure are any Canadian jobs that depend on US-based LockheedMartin?
US has some unresolved issues -- current president was elected not once but _TWICE. Upcoming elections will still include the voters that put him in office so it might be some time -- if ever -- before US returns to friendliness of past generations.
- Saab wants to expand its Gripen production. Saab wants to _build modern Gripens under license in Canada, which would keep defence spending in Canada, flowing to Canadian workers, companies and suppliers.
"Under license" means manufacturing is done at home and Saab gets a license fee for its blueprints, etc.
Building jets under license was a multiplier for Canada in the past. Canadair used to build Canada's fighter jets (CF-86, CF-104, CF-5) under license in Canada. Canadair had even improved upon the CF-86 by replacing its US-built GE engine with the better-performing Canadian-built Avro Orenda engine.
The multiplier: Canadair then also _created the Tutor (Snowbirds), the Challenger, the CRJ, the CL-415 "super scooper" water bomber.
The multiplier keeps working: Saab GlobalEye AWACS, just bought by France, uses Bombardier Global 6500 airframes -- airframes evolved directly from the CRJ ( Canadair Regional Jet ); the CL-415 "super scooper" is now in much demand for fighting wild fires and it's being updated as the DHC-515.
We can’t control Washington’s tantrums.
But we can control what we build at home.
Same rule as lumber.
Same rule as autos.
Now it’s jets.
If we “buy” fighters from Texas, we don’t actually own anything.
We’re leasing hardware from a vendor whose politics change every four years.
That’s not defence.
That’s dependence.
Meanwhile Saab is literally offering to build Gripens here under license.
That means...
• Canadian factories
• Canadian workers
• Canadian suppliers
• Canadian control
Money stays here. Skills stay here. Jobs stay here.
And history already proved it works.
Canadair built fighters under license before... and that knowledge snowballed into the Bombardier Aerospace jets, the water bombers, the regional planes.
That’s what manufacturing does.
It multiplies.
Buying finished toys from someone else?
That just multiplies invoices.
If your supplier can turn hostile overnight, they’re not a partner.
They’re a risk.
Defence spending should defend Canada first.
Not someone else’s payroll.
Well, Detroit responds to change by building yesterday’s cars and whining at Japan for not buying them. Canada can build the cars of tomorrow. Competition can be all right.
You’re not wrong Steve.
Detroit has a long tradition of protecting yesterday instead of inventing tomorrow.
Build the same models.
Polish the chrome.
Then complain that Japan won’t buy them.
That’s not competition.
That’s nostalgia with a factory.
Meanwhile Canada actually has a shot to leapfrog the whole mess.
We don’t have to defend legacy plants or 40 years of “this is how we’ve always done it.”
We can go straight to...
• EVs
• batteries
• critical minerals
• next-gen manufacturing
Basically... build the stuff the next 30 years will need... not the last 30.
Competition isn’t scary.
Complacency is.
If Detroit wants to sell 1998 forever… fine.
We’ll build 2035 and ship it past them.
Subsidies are always a gamble that may or may not payoff. There are a number of gambles that did not payoff like Northvolt in Quebec that received millions in subsidy and many other advantages to build a battery factory in Quebec that never materialize, Stelantis and GM received loans/subsidies to maintain auto (EV) production in Canada but decided to stop or move production to the USA are a few recent examples. I don’t know how successful this last round of subsidies will fare. I hope they will do better but I’m a bit skeptical that they will generate the returns expected.
You’re not wrong, Luc.
Subsidies are bets.
And yeah… some of those bets have face-planted lately.
Northvolt.
Stellantis.
GM.
Big promises. Fancy press conferences. Then poof... plans change and taxpayers are left holding the bag.
So the skepticism? Totally earned.
But here’s the part I look at differently…
Doing nothing isn’t risk-free either.
If we don’t invest at all, the factories don’t stay.
They don’t “wait for better times.”
They quietly pack up and bolt the machines to someone else’s floor.
And once that happens, you’re not negotiating anymore... you’re begging.
At least subsidies give us a seat at the table and some leverage.
The real problem isn’t the money.
It’s the strings.
If we’re writing cheques, there should be iron-clad conditions...
Build here.
Hire here.
Stay here.
Or pay it back.
No loopholes. No corporate escape hatches.
So yeah... healthy skepticism is smart.
But I’d rather see Canada swinging the bat than standing there hoping the pitch never comes.
US manufacturers have a history of pulling back easily, taking off with Canada's subsidy money. Hopefully this time they get bitten back. Japanese and Korean manufacturers have demonstrated a different approach. Now that they've been burnt by the US government, they see even more the difference witl Canada about creating and honouring mutually beneficial deals instead of practicing an extraction economy.
As for Northvolt, apparently the company was already struggling in Norway. The government that opened them the door has failed at almost any of its projects because of a lack of vision about economy and its ever stubborn refusal to consult experts on anything. Unfortunately, an accountant is not the same as an economist and we are paying the price for this lesson.
You’re making a really important distinction here.
Not all manufacturers behave the same.
Some treat subsidies like a partnership.
Others treat them like a loot bag.
There’s definitely a pattern where certain U.S. giants take the money, then quietly pack up when the next state waves a bigger cheque.
That’s not investment.
That’s extraction.
Meanwhile companies out of Japan and South Korea tend to play a longer game... build relationships, honour deals, stick around.
Which honestly fits Canada’s style better anyway.
Less smash-and-grab. More “let’s make this work for 20 years.”
And yeah... the Northvolt situation is a good lesson too.
If a company is already wobbling financially, throwing subsidies at it doesn’t magically fix the fundamentals.
That’s not industrial policy... that’s hope with a press conference.
To me the takeaway isn’t “don’t subsidize.”
It’s...
Do your homework.
Pick stable partners.
And write contracts with teeth.
Build here. Hire here. Stay here. Or pay it back.
Because corporations don’t respond to goodwill.
They respond to math.
So we’d better write better math.
Legault also sank a lot of money in the Lion Électrique bus company. He almost killed it too. They were doing fine with their school buses but Legault wanted an economic success to brag about compared to Ontario, so instead of doing some research and finding good projects, he decided to throw hundreds of millions at Lion to develop an electric truck faster than they could.
Company leaders wanted the money but were not ready to grow that fast. Trucks were scraped together frantically and sent out the door without proper parts and built. Many were defective and had to be brought back in.
We have their school buses here in Montreal. They seem to run fine, but you can't make a plant grow faster by pulling on it, the same with an enterprise apparently.
And again, an accountant acting arbitrarily doesn't get the same results as an economist studying a situation and planning development based on factual knowledge of the different economic factors.
If Trump lived in the world where horse and buggy were being replaced by automobiles, he would be introducing tariffs to protect the bridle and whip makers.
😂 That’s painfully accurate.
If Donald Trump had been around in 1905, he’d be slapping tariffs on cars to “save American buggy jobs.”
“Protect the whip industry!”
Meanwhile the rest of the world is inventing highways.
That’s the part that drives me nuts about these trade fights.
They’re not protecting the future.
They’re protecting yesterday.
Real leadership says,
“Okay, what’s next and how do we win there?”
Tariff thinking says,
“How do we freeze time and punish anyone who moves forward?”
History is brutal with that mindset.
You don’t stop progress.
You just miss the bus.
And then blame the bus.
Oh I'm pretty sure Trump is all in for the whip industry. The gag one too.
That you for the information. It's excellent. It's long past the point of all the integration that may have worked at one time but hasn't for over a year. I'm very happy our PM and government is standing up and saying "enough is enough"!
I would like the Grippen's agreement signed with Saab and for Canadian to start building our own aircraft's that we control the maintenance on(especially plus who controls the computer systems)
I saw an interview on TV and the pilot said that they would rather have the F 35 because it's just like "heaven flying them. "But they don't think about the cost and how many times they break down.
The Swedish Saab's have been built to work in the Arctic and right now and for the foreseeable future what we need to do is protect the Arctic and the shorelines into the Arctic.
I have a granddaughter whose work puts her in those military planes and I would really like to know that the one she's flying in is going to be safely made, and protected under Canadian law.
I hear you, Gail... and honestly, this isn’t even about fighter jets anymore.
It’s about control.
For years we bought defence gear like tenants renting someone else’s tools.
But when you “lease” planes like the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, you don’t really own them.
You depend on...
• foreign parts
• foreign software
• foreign approvals
• and sometimes foreign politics
That’s fine… until it isn’t.
Meanwhile the Saab JAS 39 Gripen from Saab AB was literally designed for cold weather, rough runways, quick repairs, and small crews.
In other words... they're built for places that look a lot like the North.
Not sunny test ranges.
And here’s the part that matters most to me too...
If we build them here in Canada under license…
We control...
• the maintenance
• the parts
• the upgrades
• the software
• the jobs
And nobody can flick a political switch and ground our fleet.
That’s not ideology.
That’s common sense.
“Heaven to fly” sounds nice in an interview.
But when it’s your granddaughter in the cockpit?
You want reliable.
Fixable.
Made at home.
Comfort doesn’t win wars.
Dependability does.
A number of commentators have made the points about the ability of the Gripen to take off from roads instead of runways, to function with small crews, to require less maintenance, and less specialized facilities. They are all correct. The thing that makes these important is not usually mentioned however, and that is the ability to survive a pre-emptive attack. Sweden's intention is to be able to fight after such a strike, presumably by their large and unfriendly neighbour Russia, wipes out Sweden's established airbases and supporting infrastructure. The key word is dispersal. You can't hit what you can't find. We have a larger area than Sweden to hide in between enemy strikes, and new "bases" (i.e. a stretch of road, a building large enough to house one or two aircraft, buried fuel tanks, and a couple of dozen support people and crew) can be created relatively quickly and cheaply. Having a force of aircraft built, and solely supported by, your current biggest threat is a bad idea for numerous reasons. The famous "off switch" may not exist and would not even be necessary. If the supplier has malign intent, they would only need to know where the aircraft is located on the ground. A "beacon" or other method for interrogating the aircraft would do the job. They are designed to talk to each other, so... Stealth would be irrelevant in that scenario. Just sayin'
This is the part most people miss Keith.
Everyone debates speed, stealth, “cool factor”…
But war isn’t Top Gun.
It’s logistics and survival.
The whole philosophy behind the Saab JAS 39 Gripen came from Sweden staring across the map at Russia and saying...
“Okay… assume our airbases get smashed on day one. Now what?”
So they built a jet that doesn’t need airbases.
Roads.
Parking lots.
A few mechanics.
Fuel truck.
Back in the air.
That’s not convenience.
That’s dispersal.
And dispersal equals survival.
You can’t bomb what you can’t find.
Now look at Canada.
We’ve got ridiculous space.
Thousands of kilometres of empty nothing.
If we can’t hide aircraft up here, we’re doing something wrong.
Meanwhile buying jets that are...
• maintenance-heavy
• dependent on foreign parts
• dependent on foreign software
• and supported by the same country that might pressure us politically
…that’s not sovereignty.
That’s renting your own defence.
And you’re dead right about the “off switch” debate.
You don’t need a Hollywood kill switch.
All a supplier really needs is data.
Location = vulnerability.
If someone else controls the tech stack, you’re trusting them forever.
That’s a gamble I wouldn’t take with our pilots.
Especially not family.
Gripen’s boring, practical, and fixable.
Which in real life beats fancy and fragile every time.
Way to go Canada. The ORANGE MORON is taking America back to the stone age. Fred Flintstone will be running the Detroit Auto making machine.
😄 You just painted the perfect picture, Peter.
I can see it now…
Detroit rolling out the Fred Flintstone Edition...
foot-powered, zero emissions, optional stone wheels.
“Yabba Dabba Doo Motors.”
But jokes aside, that’s kinda what it feels like, doesn’t it?
While the rest of the world is racing toward EVs, batteries, and modern supply chains…
some folks down there are busy arguing with the calendar.
You don’t win the future by pretending it’s 1975.
Meanwhile Canada’s over here doing the boring adult stuff...
build factories
secure materials
protect jobs
keep moving forward
Not sexy.
But progress rarely is.
Let them cosplay the Stone Age.
We’ll build the next decade.
Please auto industry follow along with Canada and do things right!! Canadians will support you all the way . Pay Attention to what the government is setting in place to support your business Plan!!
Exactly, Pearl.
This is one of those moments where the opportunity is sitting right in front of us.
Government support.
Investment on the table.
Policy finally pointing the same direction as industry.
Now it’s just execution.
If the auto sector leans in... builds here, hires here, sources here... Canadians will absolutely back them. We always do when companies show they’re serious about staying rooted in Canada.
Nobody expects miracles.
Just commitment.
Build it here.
Employ Canadians.
Stop chasing the cheapest border.
That’s how you get loyalty and profits.
Feels like common sense… which usually means it’s the right move. 😄
What a cosmic convergence. Canada gets Carney and we get Trump.
These two facts will determine the future of North America
Oh Mary… that line deserves to be framed and hung on the fridge. 😄
“Cosmic convergence” is exactly what it feels like.
You’ve basically described two very different management styles showing up at the same family dinner...
On one side...
Mark Carney... calm, numbers guy, central banker brain, the type who reads spreadsheets for fun and worries about bond yields at 3am.
On the other...
Donald Trump... chaos cannon, tariffs by tweet, running the economy like a reality show finale.
One guy builds shock absorbers.
The other guy jumps the car over the ditch to “see what happens.”
If anything, it might accidentally be the best thing that ever happened to Canada.
Because when your neighbour is lighting fireworks in the garage…
you suddenly get very serious about fireproofing your own house.
Different energy.
Different mindset.
Very different futures.
North America’s about to run a real-time experiment:
Steady hands vs. loud hands.
My money’s on steady.
So now we will be at a 103 billion to the foreign-owned automotive industry who at any time can get up and leave because they don't have any money into it it's our dollars the taxpayers.
Here’s the part politicians never say out loud...
We pay to build the sandbox…
…and the foreign companies bring their own toys.
Then if they don’t like the weather, they take the toys and go home.
Meanwhile we’re left holding the shovel.
If taxpayers are footing the bill, we should be getting ownership, guarantees, or penalties for leaving.
Otherwise it’s just corporate babysitting.
We should only be funding Canadian companies no multi nationals should get one cent of Canadian tax dollars.
I look forward to buying a Canadian electric car
I’m nearly 82. Out of the mouths of babies and old geezers like us comes wisdom.
Perhaps it’s just lucky coincidence, but LG and Hyundai have plants in the U.S. but are not in a position to expand production there at this time. So we may have just got them in a “gotchya” moment. Hopefully this will be translated into a long term commitment well into the century. Just wish there was an opportunity to develop the IP that goes into automotive development with a domestic design house.
Lines in the asphalt are much better than lines in the sand, because as soon as the tide comes in, or the wind starts blowing, that line is gone.
LOL
You’re a deluded moron if you think Canada has ANY leverage here.
Or more likely you’re a paid shill for the Chinese CCP.
Either way, Liberals have been bankrupting Canada for the last decade. They won’t stop until Canada is destroyed and the coffers empty.
Wholesale corruption…Canada is Venezuela North.
Easy there.
If we have to jump straight to “moron” and “foreign agent,” we’ve already left reality.
This isn’t about China.
It’s not about party colours.
It’s not even about loving or hating Liberals.
It’s about basic leverage.
Every country with resources has leverage.
Canada supplies...
• energy
• critical minerals
• aluminum
• lumber
• food
• auto parts
• aerospace
That’s not Venezuela.
That’s one of the most resource-rich countries on Earth.
Leverage isn’t chest-thumping.
It’s supply chains.
If your neighbour needs what you produce… you have leverage. Period.
And calling everyone who disagrees with you a “CCP shill” just short-circuits any real conversation.
We can argue policy all day.
But if the opening move is insults?
That’s not strength.
That’s noise.