Your airspace is about 1/100th of what ours is, we have to fly much, much father to intercept threats over the Northern areas. The F35 is a much easier sell for you than us. I agree with your country and your argument about choice, it's pretty much the same we were left with, and the only reason the RCAF pulled out of the F35 deal was it was a hot debate during the elections, so the current ruling gov't yanked the sale in order to gain points, although they said it was due to capability vs $, which is a fair enough argument as well. That said, the F35 has nowhere near the range required for long range patrols and interceptions that are part and parcel to the Norad agreement. Considering it's patrol a/c and long range bombers typically being intercepted, if the F35 had superb range, it not being the top of the food chain in a2a maneuverability and speed wouldn't be quite as critical, but the range is no better, perhaps worse, than our current fighter. That and being single engined in a very sparsely populated northern area with few runways about, having twin engines is a pretty important factor, much like it is in the Navy, but it's trees you splash into, not seawater if your single engine fails in our case.
For a European military, I'd say the Gripen may actually be the best fighter out there right now.
My high school friend I mentioned, Jason "Fudge" Paquin, flew it a lot in the Empire test school, and then on some ex's with a NATO member country's air force. He loved it, and although it isn't the absolute best at anything, it was great at everything, and most of all had great sortie generation rates - ie compared to the CF18 he flew, he estimated that the Grippen could generate about 1.5 as many mission sorties with the same ground crews in the RCAF right now. That's a big deal, it's like having half again as many fighters in a time of war as he explains it. It's comparatively cheap as well. Again though, single engine, and pretty short range. It's great for European countries where you can barely turn around at 500 kts within their borders, but over here, where our country can fit multiple Europes within its borders, we NEED range, and prefer twin engines.