(The following report appeared on the Northern Ontario Business website on November 6.)
SUDBURY, Ontario — Bombardier Transportation in Thunder Bay may avert layoffs in 2003 if a contract to refit rail cars begins immediately, a Bombardier official says. “It all depends when Via Rail will ask us to start the refurbishing,” Helene Gagnon, spokesperson for Bombardier Transportation North American division, says.
“If they tell us to start very soon then it could have an impact on the number of layoffs because we are planning layoffs end of November and in December,” Gagnon explains.
“If the work does not start right now then the layoffs will happen as planned and it definitely will have an impact on the number of recalls in 2004.”
Bombardier will be a part of a $692.5-million revitalization project over the next five years, called Renaissance II, put forth by David Collenette to upgrade and expand inter-city passenger rail service in Canada. The capital funds will be used to acquire new locomotives, restore fleets, implement infrastructure improvements to reduce bottlenecking in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor and upgrade station refurbishment. However, Gagnon says their role in the initiative is unclear since there are no time lines or budgets and access to capital will not occur until April of next year.
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions, however, we take this as very good news at this point.”
Some Martin supporters believe it is too late in Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s term to approve such a project. With only three weeks until the official leadership change, Joe Comuzzi MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, says Chretien has no business making billion-dollar promises like this.