Canada's illustrious leader never wants to upset people (he's more interested in getting in a selfie!). He campaigned in the recent election that we would not buy the F-35 for various reasons. Now it seems someone has convinced him that is the best airplane but he can't buy it so he's punting the decision until after the next election.
FYI Canada will not buy the F-18G because we don't do electronic attack for FJ's. If ever required, we would just tack onto a strike package led by another country and let them do it.
What Canada does is long range patrol over very cold and barren terrain. This makes it immoral and unethical to get pilots to fly single engine FJ's. We also will never need a first day of war, kick down the door, type of FJ. We intercept Russion bombers and patrols over the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific. If flying for NATO, we only patrol in protected airspace.
The F-18E/F is not noted as a hot rod compared to other current generation FJ's, but it will keep up with a strike package. I'm surprised the government didn't just buy a whole replacement lot of F-18's right now, but the liberals are masters at dithering and making sure everything will cost as much as possible.