Swedish defence firm Saab wants Canada to buy and build its fighter jets. Saab CEO Micael Johansson says jet manufacturing could create up to 10,000 jobs over three to five years. 'It's up to Canada to decide,' Johansson tells Power & Politics.
»»» Subscribe to CBC News to watch more videos: http://bit.ly/1RreYWS
For breaking news, video, audio and in-depth coverage: https://www.cbc.ca/news
Follow CBC News on TikTok: / cbcnews
Subscribe to CBC News on Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3leaWsr
Download the CBC News app for iOS: http://apple.co/25mpsUz
Download the CBC News app for Android: http:/...
Questions asked in this interview
10
0:00So, will the promise of thousands of jobs here in Canada be enough for Saab to secure that deal?
0:40Why should Canada move away from the F-35s and go with your Gripen?
1:24Does the Canadian government need to buy the Gripen for the military for that deal to happen?
2:28Right, so does that mean the industrial benefits and maybe the industrial arrangement is possible without a larger Gripen purchase, or is it just not likely to happen unless there is that package deal?
Swedish defense firm Saab wants Canada to buy and build its fighter jets. The firm is pitching a partnership with Bombardier and promising to create up to 10,000 jobs along with it. This comes after Prime Minister Mark Carney ordered a review of Canada's F-35 contract with US firm Lockheed Martin. In the face of US President Donald Trump's trade war, Canada is pitting two giant defense firms against each other: Saab's Gripen versus Lockheed Martin's F-35s. So, will the promise of thousands of jobs here in Canada be enough for Saab to secure that deal? Micael Johansson is the president and CEO of Saab, and he joins me now. Mr. Johansson, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here today, sir.
I don't know if most of your business trips involve bringing the king and queen of Sweden along, but you've put quite a proposal on the table for Canada. Why should Canada move away from the F-35s and go with your Gripen?
Well, that's absolutely up to Canada. I mean, if Canada thinks it's important to have sovereign capabilities in the air domain, being able to have a design authority over a fighter aircraft system, of course, we are prepared to move technology to Canada and set up shop here with partnerships with industry, but it's up to Canada to decide whether you want to have more sovereign capability going forward. And I mean, it doesn't have to be either or. I mean the Gripen fighter will be interoperable with the F-35 also.
The number of 10,000 jobs was put on the table publicly by Melanie Jolie, our industry minister. At least that was the first time I heard it this week. So this is if there is some sort of an arrangement to expand production capability for your aircraft here in Canada. Does the Canadian government need to buy the Gripen for the military for that deal to happen?
Well, of course it's connected. If you do a huge technology transfer and knowledge transfer and you invest in Canadian industry and partnerships with them, of course, creating jobs is important, but it's connected to a business, of course, to us, but we also need a hub somewhere else in the world and in Sweden and Brazil to actually boost the capacity of the production of the fighters. So, you have a fantastic industrial base. It makes sense to do it in Canada from my perspective, but of course it's connected to a deal, and because it's a shortcut to creating sovereign capability, and that's worth quite a lot for a country, I would say.
Right, so does that mean the industrial benefits and maybe the industrial arrangement is possible without a larger Gripen purchase, or is it just not likely to happen unless there is that package deal?
But I mean, if Canada themselves wouldn't sort of go and fly another fighter and have a dual fleet, it doesn't make sense really to transfer all this technology to Canadian industry because it's also an important sort of connection to the end user that actually is using the fighter to continuously develop a system like that. So I think it goes hand in hand, but it's a huge potential. It's not only production, it's also high value jobs. It's design authority, software-defined systems. So it's a lot of things that come with it, and a whole ecosystem of companies of course working with this system.
Okay. So in terms of what it would actually look like, sir, I know you have an assembly plant in Brazil. Is this more than simply the assembly component? Is there a manufacturing component to this? Making the parts, making the components? Is it sort of like from start to finish? What exactly is on offer for Canada?
Well, that you can design the way you want it, of course, but final assembly and test and having the capability of actually getting a full-fledged fighter airplane out of a factory is an important part, but it could be piece part production as well, but it would be also design and development center because lots of the capabilities of these aircraft are connected to software today. So it's several components, and it would be a flight test center of course to be established, and an R&D center. So it's not only production.
Okay. So this would be more robust, for example, than say the operation that Saab has in Brazil. Should it go ahead? Am I understanding that correctly, sir?
11 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Johansson, M. (2025, November 20). Saab fighter jet deal could create thousands of Canadian jobs: CEO | Power & Politics [Interview transcript]. CBC News. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1104863/
MLA
Micael Johansson. "Saab fighter jet deal could create thousands of Canadian jobs: CEO | Power & Politics." CBC News, 20 Nov. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1104863/.
BibTeX
@misc{johansson2025_1104863,
author = {Micael Johansson},
title = {Saab fighter jet deal could create thousands of Canadian jobs: CEO | Power \& Politics},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CBC News. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {nov},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1104863/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
