Bombardier To Manufacture 18,000 Ventilators At Ontario Plant - Baystreet.ca

Bombardier Inc. (T.BBD.B) is making 18,000 ventilators for the Ontario government at its temporarily closed plant in the City of Thunder Bay.

The plane-and-train maker says it will carry out sanding, painting and assembly work on the ventilators for company O-Two Medical Technologies, which manufactures respiratory care products. O-Two found its supply chain disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and started hunting for help to churn out portable ventilators amid a looming shortage in Canada.

The plant expects to start work on April 27, drawing on between 40 and 50 employees - most of whom had been temporarily laid off. Bombardier, which is headquartered in Montreal, has furloughed 70% of its Canadian workforce due to the pandemic.

Employment at the factory, which had 1,100 workers last summer, now hovers at around 420 after two of its major contracts - for the Toronto Transit Commission’s streetcars and Metrolinx GO Transit rail cars - wound down over the last month.

The ventilator work will include assembling display screens and installing battery boxes along with inspecting and shipping to O-Two, which will carry out final assembly and testing of the ventilators. Bombardier announced in February that it is selling its rail division to French train giant Alstom SA in order to concentrate on manufacturing private airplanes.

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