Not to take the discussion too much further OT, since this is the RNZAF and not the RCAF discussion thread.
From what I have come across, Canada ordered two versions of the EH101 in 1987 to replace their SH-3/S-61 Sea King (local designation CH-124) ASW and CH-46 Labrador (local designation CH-113) SAR helicopters. Following the significant change in gov't after the 1993 election, the new gov't opted to cancel order placed by their immediate predecessors and instead retain the ASW and SAR helicopters that were in service at the time. IIRC this caused some concern and discontent because no helicopters were delivered, yet Canada still had to pay CAN$157 mil. in cancellation penalties, and the helicopters being retained had been in service for ~30 years at that point.
Five years later, during the gov't of Canadian PM Jean Chrétien (same one that cancelled the first EH101 order) it was decided that the SAR helicopters would now be replaced, but this time a scaled-down version of the EH101 SAR helicopter from the first order would be selected, and this time no local assembly. It was not until 2001 that the first replacement SAR helicopters actually arrived in Canada, by which point the CH-113 Labrador SAR helicopters were about 38 years old.
In 2004, it was finally decided that the by now 41 year old Sea King ASW helicopters really needed to be replaced. The successor gov't to Jean Chrétien under PM Paul Martin, selected the CH-148 Cyclone which is a military version of the Sikorsky S-92 for Canada. Deliveries were planned to start in 2009, at which point the Sea Kings would have been ~46 years old. Due to a number of issues with the design and production of the Canadian variant, deliveries of interim (i.e. functional but not full contract specifications at present) CH-148 Cyclones are planed to start this year and run until 2018, so that the still in service and aging Sea Kings can finally be retired. FOC is not anticipated until 2018, at the earliest.
Given some of the procurement decisions, it has seemed almost as though each new gov't goes to deliberately undo or make a different choice than their predecessor for no real reason other than to choose something different.
IIRC when a replacement for the Sea King was again being looked at in the 2002-2004 timeframe, the CH-148 Petrel version of the EH101 was looked at again by the Chrétien gov't, but was rejected in favour of the Sikorsky design, because it was Chrétien's predecessors in the Mulroney gov't what had originally wanted to go with the EH101 in the first place, which the Chrétien gov't had paid a penalty to cancel.
