Brat, the Canadian government does not have the deep purse that their southern neighbor does, so they have to be careful with their expenditures. In any major defense acquisition policy, both cost and opportunity cost have to be addressed.
There is no major acquisition decision that is not political, because the politicians have to account for how public funds are spent. The opportunity cost of a very expensive decision is that one cannot spend those same funds on something else whose requirement was validated. Within the past decade or so, the Canadian government has had to answer for an expensive helicopter acquisition decision that didn't turn out as expected. Being recently bitten may inform their caution now.