The Saab Gripen E and the Lockheed Martin F-35 are in a dogfight to replace the aging CF-18s, as Canada is finally on track to choose its next fighter plane this year. The Boeing Super Hornet was also in the running, but was officially eliminated in November 2021. Now the bids from Sweden and the United States are left vying for the criteria set forth by Public Services and Procurement Canada, based on capability, cost, and economic benefits. Alex McColl, a master of public policy grad from the University of Calgary, recommended the Gripen in his 2018 capstone paper. In an interview with The Epoch Times, he called the F-35 an “expensive and complicated maintenance-heavy fighter bomber,” the kind that Canada wisely avoided when it chose the F-18 hornet 40 years ago. “The Air Force of the time wanted to buy the big, heavy, expensive American Eagle, and [Pierre] Trudeau forced …