The glory days of Thunder Bay’s shipbuilding could soon be revived as the Canadian government looks to rebuild the country’s navy.
Sean Padulo is the President of Hamilton based Heddle Shipyards, and tells us they’re working to ensure this city will be contributing to ships as well as other Canadian cities.
“I’m going to be going up to Thunder Bay with this group from the Netherlands, they’re sending a technical team to assess our yard there, to see how much we can do in Thunder Bay. And what we can do in terms of building modules, that can then be shipped down to Port Weller, and integrated into a ship.”
However, the Heddle president notes the company is overcoming some hurdles, which he says included obstacles put in place to stop Thunder Bay from getting contracts from the government, and awarding them to other cities.
“I’m still concerned based on the response we received recently from the government. They invoked a national security exemption to dismiss a complaint we submitted to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. I’m just not sure why that was done.”
And, there could be good news for Thunder Bay for years to come.
“The project will be about 20 years, and that’s based on the government’s solicitation documents. In terms of Thunder Bay, it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact number, because we’re not sure about the build strategy yet, but anywhere from 25-50.”
The Heddle President says a total of roughly 400 jobs to be filled.
