More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
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.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”