>As of March 31st, 2026, Airbus reported a commercial aircraft backlog of 9,031 aircraft. Based on the company’s 2026 delivery target of 870 aircraft, this represents approximately 10.4 years of production coverage.
>Boeing’s commercial backlog stood at approximately 6,719 aircraft at the end of March. Using Forecast International’s production estimates, Boeing’s backlog equates to roughly 10.1 years of production coverage.
Worth noting that the base plane for one of the US-based contenders, the Aeris X by L3Harris, would also be the same Bombardier Global 6500 business jet.
Or, consider that the smaller Saab better fits the mission profile for Canada, and may be cheaper to operate, all the while The Guardian is furiously beating off trying to turn this into a bigger story than it really is.
Now the interesting question to me is why is that a country with a tenth of population can have car, truck and military plane manufacturing yet Canada can’t, even with virtually all resources for inputs, including energy can’t.
Canada has many issues. First and foremost, their entire economy is basically 3 mineral extraction industries stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.
They are also (unfortunate?) to share a border with USA and be party to NAFTA. This makes it trivial for educated, professional Canadians to work in the US on a TN visa indefinitely. We know that the doctor and nurse brain-drain from Canada to the US has been ongoing for decades. But it's actually every industry since US firms pay 2-3x more than equivalent Canadian firms.
The reality is that Canadians get very good, tax-payer subsidized educations and then immediately go to the US to work for 10+ years and only return later when they need to start drawing on the Canadian social services for things like healthcare and family care. And Canada itself got none of the benefits of that workforce in between.
I saw a figure recently that the US issued an all-time-high 800,000 TN visas to Canadians in 2016. And then in 2023 it surged to nearly 1.3 million.
> I saw a figure recently that the US issued an all-time-high 800,000 TN visas to Canadians in 2016. And then in 2023 it surged to nearly 1.3 million.
The US doesn't track/release issued TN visa numbers, but what you're citing is the number of individual entries using a TN visa - visaholders go back and forth, it's not a number of visa holders.
Resource extraction is about ~10% of GDP, compared to 3-5% in the US and 1-2% in Europe. Hardly the entire economy. It's also diversified resource extraction, it's not dependent on oil, etc.
These are extremely expensive programs that the Swedes have historically been willing to pay to maintain as much neutrality as possible in their defence procurement system. A Saab Gripen has almost the same flyway cost as an F-35 because of manufacturing scale differences (maintenance is far cheaper, though) and the Gripen is far less capable (it is one of the best western fighters if a full blown war happens and your bases are all destroyed, though). Sweden had unique defence requirements due to this that wasn't being met by others.
Sweden was forced to take their defence seriously due to their geography and political will. Canada has had an easy ride and when the going got expensive, we cancelled our domestic programs (most famously the arrow, but also a lot of other stuff).
Sweden does not have a car industry. The fighter jets are a different matter, very strong technical moat and need to prove the system in combat. You can't just start a fighter jet business.
Sweden had a native car industry they decommissioned themselves, in short, they basically gave up, but they’re not alone Australia, New Zealand did the same and so did Canada, but they’re starting to realize that they were a little bit hasty in giving up….
Then last, but not least the UK basically threw the towel in too on a wide assortment of industries, but they’re now discovering that that was a big mistake.
Saab makes excellent AWACS systems, this strikes me as a good choice. It'll be interesting to see if Canada also invests in the Gripen long-term, as a replacement for the aging CF-18 fleet.
Boeing and Airbus have tremendous backlogs...
>As of March 31st, 2026, Airbus reported a commercial aircraft backlog of 9,031 aircraft. Based on the company’s 2026 delivery target of 870 aircraft, this represents approximately 10.4 years of production coverage.
>Boeing’s commercial backlog stood at approximately 6,719 aircraft at the end of March. Using Forecast International’s production estimates, Boeing’s backlog equates to roughly 10.1 years of production coverage.
https://flightplan.forecastinternational.com/2026/04/14/airb...
It helps that the base plane is built in Canada, and that the PM made commitments to the Swedish king in November 2025.
Worth noting that the base plane for one of the US-based contenders, the Aeris X by L3Harris, would also be the same Bombardier Global 6500 business jet.
Or, consider that the smaller Saab better fits the mission profile for Canada, and may be cheaper to operate, all the while The Guardian is furiously beating off trying to turn this into a bigger story than it really is.
Bring back the Arrow
The US doesn't even use the Wedgetail, and has cancelled and then un-cancelled it:
https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/pentagon-e-7-wedgetail-...
Now the interesting question to me is why is that a country with a tenth of population can have car, truck and military plane manufacturing yet Canada can’t, even with virtually all resources for inputs, including energy can’t.
Canada has many issues. First and foremost, their entire economy is basically 3 mineral extraction industries stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.
They are also (unfortunate?) to share a border with USA and be party to NAFTA. This makes it trivial for educated, professional Canadians to work in the US on a TN visa indefinitely. We know that the doctor and nurse brain-drain from Canada to the US has been ongoing for decades. But it's actually every industry since US firms pay 2-3x more than equivalent Canadian firms.
The reality is that Canadians get very good, tax-payer subsidized educations and then immediately go to the US to work for 10+ years and only return later when they need to start drawing on the Canadian social services for things like healthcare and family care. And Canada itself got none of the benefits of that workforce in between.
I saw a figure recently that the US issued an all-time-high 800,000 TN visas to Canadians in 2016. And then in 2023 it surged to nearly 1.3 million.
> I saw a figure recently that the US issued an all-time-high 800,000 TN visas to Canadians in 2016. And then in 2023 it surged to nearly 1.3 million.
The US doesn't track/release issued TN visa numbers, but what you're citing is the number of individual entries using a TN visa - visaholders go back and forth, it's not a number of visa holders.
DHS estimates 130k Canadian visaholders in country in 2024. https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/nonimmigrant/populat...
>their entire economy
Resource extraction is about ~10% of GDP, compared to 3-5% in the US and 1-2% in Europe. Hardly the entire economy. It's also diversified resource extraction, it's not dependent on oil, etc.
These are extremely expensive programs that the Swedes have historically been willing to pay to maintain as much neutrality as possible in their defence procurement system. A Saab Gripen has almost the same flyway cost as an F-35 because of manufacturing scale differences (maintenance is far cheaper, though) and the Gripen is far less capable (it is one of the best western fighters if a full blown war happens and your bases are all destroyed, though). Sweden had unique defence requirements due to this that wasn't being met by others.
Sweden was forced to take their defence seriously due to their geography and political will. Canada has had an easy ride and when the going got expensive, we cancelled our domestic programs (most famously the arrow, but also a lot of other stuff).
Sweden does not have a car industry. The fighter jets are a different matter, very strong technical moat and need to prove the system in combat. You can't just start a fighter jet business.
Sweden had a native car industry they decommissioned themselves, in short, they basically gave up, but they’re not alone Australia, New Zealand did the same and so did Canada, but they’re starting to realize that they were a little bit hasty in giving up….
Then last, but not least the UK basically threw the towel in too on a wide assortment of industries, but they’re now discovering that that was a big mistake.
It does with Volvo, although I couldn't say how big it is relative to global industry. Within Europe it's a large player
A Chinese company owns Volvo since 2010 or so.
Scania is Swedish, too.
Volvo still produces cars in Sweden. Koenigsegg still build their cars in Ängelholm.
But by that metric Canada also has a car industry? Canada builds 1.5M cars annually.
Why are you discounting Volvo?
>> Sweden does not have a car industry.
Apart from Volvo, Koenigsegg and Polestar and Scania. Apart from that, you’re right.
If Saab wanted to they could spin up a car factory as well. But they are more interested in selling these airplanes the article is about.
Not that it invalidate your point, but Sweden has 1/4 the population of Canada, not 1/10.
Because Canada has been poorly managed for a long time by all political parties that have been voted in.
There are trade offs in all things. Trying to do everything yourself does also have a cost. It is not neccesarily better.
Resources curse
> as the country seeks to reduce reliance on US defense firms
I wonder why ? I think we may be seeing a lot more of this.
Maybe we will get to see what US Corporations value more, real paying customers or large tax cuts w/stock buy back curtsy of US Gov Monetary Support.
Saab makes excellent AWACS systems, this strikes me as a good choice. It'll be interesting to see if Canada also invests in the Gripen long-term, as a replacement for the aging CF-18 fleet.