From a very practical PoV, the only military threat to Canada is from the U.S.

Even if the U.S. and Canada are enemies, if Canada is being attacked by a country that is not the U.S., then the U.S. will come to its defense because they don’t want another nation with the capability to attack Canada to have a North American presence.

So given that the U.S. is the only possible military threat to the U.S., and now that the U.S. has openly threatened Canada, it’s incredibly silly to buy weaponry from the only country that could militarily attack you and almost certainly won’t share repair material, parts, software source etc. and possibly has a kill switch.

> "Even if American equipment is superior ..."

To address the article's context, is the E-3 Sentry superior to the Erieye/GlobalEye?

> Even if American equipment is superior

I'd mention that whether a piece of tech can beat another one on one is a consideration but a larger concern is how maintainable your fleet is. Canada is specifically moving to grow ties with the EU (and has joined their defense industry network) which really incentivizes having a fleet that is a similar makeup to other European countries.

The tariffs and international unpredictability of the US is one motivator - but growing closer to EU markets is also a specific focus of the Carney government. The current Trump administration isn't even the only rationale for this - in 2017 the US imposed extremely heavy tariffs on Bombardier that bankrupted the majority of the corporation.

> while exempting Russia and Belarus

I thought they were sanctioned to hell and back. Do tariffs even apply as a concept?

Vastly inferior and overpriced. From now till delivery the US will blackmail the buyer with delays and increase the agreed upon price at least 3 times. Standard practice.

It's kind of insane they trusted us to begin with. Why?

aside from political alignment, theres a lot of geographic, budget and climate and stategic alignments that would put swdeen designers in the same headspace.

You missed the absolutely huge one: that the plane it's based around is a Bombardier aircraft manufactured here in Canada.

And in general this is how Saab has tried to court us -- by making promises (how real is unclear) to bring manufacturing jobs to Canada to build things.

That is something the US has not done, will not do, and most importantly cannot do under Trump/Bissent/etc.

Canada is very unlikely to be invaded, so the actual military effectiveness / superiority is only one factor. Reducing unemployment and enhancing our manufacturing sector is as or more important.

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> * Arbitrarily slapped high tariffs on all goods from Canada while exempting Russia and Belarus.

This is due to sanctions. There is no trade between Russia and the USA to put tariffs on.

We call this confirmation bias.

The Saab is likely cheaper to operate as it's a smaller plane and Canada only has to patrol its northern border.

What is stopping the Swedes from electing a jackass? They seem smart for now? It happens in Europe too. All these weaknesses are liable for any country in a democratic model where executive is controlled via popular vote. Population is trivial to manipulate. This is the new world. Running to Sweden doesn't change the underlying issue of the ease of manipulating an electorate using technological affordances to capture a nation from the inside without a single shot fired.