Bombardier (BBD.B-T) to help make 18,000 ventilators at shuttered Thunder Bay plant
Apr 16, '20
Bombardier Inc. is helping to produce 18,000 ventilators for the Ontario government at its temporarily shuttered plant in Thunder Bay, Ont.
The plane-and-train maker says it will carry out sanding, painting and assembly work on the equipment for Brampton, Ont.-based O-Two Medical Technologies, which manufactures respiratory care products.
Bombardier says O-Two found its supply chain disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and started hunting for help to churn out portable ventilators amid a looming shortage in Canada.
Bombardier expects to start work on April 27, drawing on between 40 and 50 employees — most of whom had been temporarily laid off — over three to four months.
The Montreal-based company, which has furloughed 70 per cent of its Canadian workforce due to the pandemic, had suspended operations at the plant as non-essential work ground to a halt across the country.
The company says the employment at the factory, which counted 1,100 workers last summer, now hovers at around 420 after two of its major contracts — for Toronto Transit Commission streetcars and Metrolinx GO Transit rail cars — wound down over the last few months. |
