Canada's new banker PM is looking at looming budget issues. Limiting F-35 procurement to a single squadron of 16 instead of a full buy of 88 saves a huge amount of money. In other words, the likelihood of the Gripen E being blocked in the event of a partial F-35 cancellation is financially appealing to a beancounter and makes costcutting look like an exercise in Candian patriotism. Expect cuts in the number of Type 26 derived frigates as well after the first batch of 3 have reached a $22 billion price tag. The goal of 15 hulls was implausible to begin with.
Cost-cutting
is now "an exercise in Canadian patriotism". Particularly when those cost-cuts result in less money being transferred to Canada's only self-declared adversary. So, perhaps that "banker PM" has turned out to be right the man for the job.
(And, yes, the planned
River class destroyers will also be cut - or cut back - for the same reasons. Firstly, to get LM's open palm out of the equation. Secondly, because there is no longer any strategic requirement for the RCN to tag along behind the USN fulfilling American foreign policy aims. Thirdly, Canada's half-century policy of paying for 'defence-from-help' has clearly failed.)
As for F-35s, NORAD is over (even if DC eventually drops its current conviction that lovely Mr. Putin can do no wrong). With NORAD fading away, Canada no longer needs to spend on interceptors. And your "banker PM" just committed CAD 4B to buy JORN ... which, hopefully, is his government's first move in detangling Canada from NORAD.
If Canada is outside of NORAD (and the US out or partly out of NATO), FMS approval isn't the issue any more. Overall trust is. So, suddenly,
Gripen makes far more sense than F-35s within the new strategic situation. Canada no longer need the range for Arctic interception. We need fighters on our land borders while severing ourselves from as many US systems as is economically practical.