Police officer hit by driver of fleeing vehicle in Toronto
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
Aviation experts say Canada is losing expertise in the manufacturing of water bombers -- just as demand for them is increasing.
The Canadair CL-415, a purpose-built water bomber, was last produced in 2015. That plane and its predecessor -- the CL-215 -- are the only water bombers used in Quebec and play major roles in the fleets of other provinces.
On Monday, water bombers from Montana were deployed in Quebec to support the province's firefighters and its fleet of 14 CL-415s and CL-215s. Quebec is experiencing its worst fire season on record, following a record fire season in Nova Scotia.
Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told a news conference earlier this week that the provinces have enough equipment to fight the fires that are raging in several parts of the country. If necessary, he said, Ottawa would try to acquire additional equipment from other countries.
"But we have to know where (the equipment) is and how we can access it very quickly," he said.
But finding planes quickly may be complicated because other countries are also fighting fires, said John Gradek, coordinator of McGill University's aviation management program.
"The northern hemisphere is in the fire season," he said in an interview. "We'll be hard-pressed to find a country that can lend us planes."
Gradek said he believes the provinces should have bought more tanker planes. "In Canada, we have 55 Canadair planes -- a combination of CL-215s and CL-415s," he said, adding that "considering the number of fires currently in the country, it's absolutely insufficient."
Some of those planes were built 50 years ago, he said.
"We don't build these planes in Canada anymore … we try to modify, to maintain and update the components of these planes," he said.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault alluded to the maintenance challenges during a news conference earlier this week, standing in front of a CL-215 that was grounded for repairs.
"When we see a CL-215 that we can't use because of maintenance issues, you have to ask yourself, do we need more mechanics? The answer is probably yes. Do we need to buy some additional new planes? I think that's more the way we have to look at it," he said.
In 2016, Bombardier, which acquired Canadair in the 1980s, sold its water bomber program to British Columbia-based Viking Air.
Viking Air, which plans to build a factory in Western Canada, could begin producing new water bombers in 2027, but those planes probably won't be used to put out forest fires in Canada, Gradek said.
"The company will have the capacity to build 10 planes a year," he said, adding that the first 25 are already intended for Indonesia, France, Spain and other European countries,
He said that if a Canadian province ordered a new CL-415, construction on it wouldn't likely begin before 2030.
"Europeans want the new generation of the Canadair CL-415 and are ready to make major purchases," he said, adding that the first generation of the plane was recognized for its performance around the world.
If the 2023 fire season is an indicator of what's to come, countries will increasingly need this type of plane.
He said he would like to see the federal government support Viking Air, "not only so that it can start producing the CL-415, but also to increase the planned production capacity."
Mehran Ebrahimi, director of the International Aeronautics and Civil Aviation Observatory at Universite du Quebec a Montreal, said he worries expertise is being lost, particularly in Quebec, since Bombardier ended production of Canadair water bombers.
"We've seen the effects of climate change around the world, so we could have put ourselves in a position not only to produce but also to strategically maintain and preserve our ability to build these aircraft, which require special expertise," said the management professor.
Referring to the CL-215, Ebrahimi said, "these are planes that we produced and we can't repair them? What happened there? Where has the expertise gone in the meantime?"
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 8, 2023.
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
Quebec Premier François Legault reiterated that the pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University must be dismantled while police remain 'on the lookout for new developments.'
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
A New Brunswick woman suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease that limits your lung capacity, is in need of a double lung transplant.
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.