In spite of all the attention BBD is getting in the financial pages for its black-hole air sector, none of the analysts or pundits or media people (outside of the GTA) appear to be drawing much attention to the Toronto debacle. Media people love to pile on in their reporting....and that isn't happening. This makes me wonder if in the scheme of things, the Toronto contract isn't important to BBD's destiny, or its stock price.
If you look at BBD's transportation business world wide, Ontario is a pretty small player. BBD has done so well internationally by buying and assimilating and morphing railcar businesses from all over. We like to think about BBD as a hometown Canadian-centric business, but these days it's multinational with engineering and manufacturing happening wherever the customer happens to be.
It makes one wonder whether Ontario has been paying a premium to retain the manufacturing here, with BBD taking the money but having little interest in it. I doubt Thunder Bay has dibs on BBD's managerial talent.
None of this can be blamed on the Thunder Bay workforce - but - I'm not confident that there is any future for Thunder Bay once the TR's are finished and GO stops ordering bilevels.....this isn't how the industry operates. New product lines move around.
BBD's Mexico plant has a somewhat convoluted history with several past owners (Gunderson, Concarril, etc). BBD's profile there has changed over the years. One does hear grumbles about the quality of the locomotive assembly which is BBD's other big activity down there. Again, if BBD is more interested in chasing business in Asia or Europe, this facility may not have been a priority.
I said earlier, and I was at least half serious - Bombardier is present at trade shows every couple of weeks. We need Toronto officials standing outside the BBD display, wearing red T-shirts with a picture of a Flexity and a TTC logo and the words "Where are our streetcars?". Toronto needs to up the profile of this issue beyond Ontario.
It's also time to shed our loyalty to their brand. It's like a relationship breakup where the other person has already moved out. We need to stop cuddling the sweater they left behind and wondering when they will settle up the unpaid bills. Okay, we prepaid some theatre tickets, but let's just give them away and not go through the pretence of attending the show as a couple. Time to move on.
- Paul
