The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that Bombardier is scouting for sites in Canada to build a new manufacturing plant for its defence business as the jet maker pushes to expand its military capabilities amid robust demand for its products and maintenance services. The Globe's Nicolas Van Praet writes that the Montreal company dispatched a team this week to look for a new site in Canada that would mirror its existing defence manufacturing operation in Wichita, Kan., chief executive officer Éric Martel told analysts on a call Thursday. A final investment decision to go ahead with the facility could come by the end of the year, he later told reporters. The plant would perform work on military aircraft platforms, such as the partnership Bombardier has with Hensoldt and Lufthansa Technik Defense for surveillance planes destined for the German Air Force and Cyber Command. In Wichita, Bombardier is supplying the airframes and doing structural modifications on the planes before handing them over for completion in Germany. Mr. Martel is in talks with another partner, Sweden's Saab, about taking on a bigger slice of production on the companies' joint GlobalEye surveillance plane program at the new Canadian plant.