Subway car assembly still favours Alstom
By: Sandi Krasowski, Local Journalism Initiative ReporterSource: The Chronicle-Journal
The Ontario government is fine-tuning details in its decision to sole-source the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Line 2 Rocket car production to Alstom in Thunder Bay.
“It is pretty much confirmed that we have the bulk of the major assembly and all the final assembly happening at the Thunder Bay plant,” Justin Roberts, president of Unifor local 1075, said, adding that it’s not finalized.
“The company and the government are still in negotiations on the Canadian content.”
With both the federal and provincial governments mandating to build Canadian content, Roberts said they are not going to go with the typical 25 per cent Canadian content.
“They’re striving for 60, 70 and even 80 per cent for this contract. That being said, the company and the government have to negotiate the inflated costs as they want more and more Canadian content,” he said. ” Because those details haven’t been fully completed yet, we don’t have the contract officially assigned.”
There have been no announcements made to the employees at the plant.
“We’re sitting in a state where we’re 95 per cent guaranteed the work,” Roberts said. “It’s confirmed that the bulk of the work is going to be in Thunder Bay,
and I think final testing is slated for Kingston, and some of the major sub-assemblies like under-frame roof components and such, are going to be done, possibly in the La Pocatiere plant in Quebec.
He added, “Again, those details are all being hashed out.”
MP Marcus Powlowski (L – Thunder Bay-Rainy River), who has been working to have the TTC contract awarded to the Thunder Bay Alstom plant, said all parties agreed to enter into negotiations with Alstom for a sole-source contract.
“My impression is that these negotiations are progressing very well,” Powlowski said. “Furthermore, it is my understanding that the final assembly and a majority of the work on the Line 2 cars will be done at the Thunder Bay plant.”
Powlowski pointed out that the federal government realizes that now is the time to buy Canadian.
“Certainly, the federal government recognizes that the Alstom plant in Thunder Bay has a long and proud tradition of manufacturing world-class rail cars,” he said. “The federal government looks forward to partnering with the province of Ontario, the City of Toronto, the TTC, and Alstom to manufacture these subway cars in Thunder Bay, creating hundreds of direct and indirect jobs in the process.”
The $2.3-billion contract for new Line 2 subway trains involves the manufacturing of 70 six-car sets, making up 55 trains to replace aging trains on Line 2 and 15 trains for the Yonge North and Scarborough extensions. There are six cars in each “car-set,” which equates to 420 cars that need to be built.
