THUNDER BAY — The owners of the Thunder Bay shipyard are pressing ahead with an effort to get some contracts through the federal government's national shipbuilding strategy.
Hamilton-based Heddle Shipyards says if the company were to obtain some of the work required to build at least six new icebreakers there would be spinoffs for its various Ontario operations, including Thunder Bay.
Heddle filed a complaint this year with the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, alleging flaws in the government's process for qualifying a third shipyard to participate.
Currently, shipyards in Vancouver and Halifax are the only qualifiers, but a Quebec City shipyard seems in line to be chosen as the other participant.
Last month, after the government moved to curtail the tribunal's investigation by invoking a controversial national-security exception, Heddle withdrew its complaint.
Company president Shaun Padulo said the decision was made for strategic reasons on the advice of its lawyers.
"Although we have withdrawn our complaint, we are not going to give up," Padulo said Thursday in a statement delivered to tbnewswatch.com.
"The Coast Guard needs ships as soon as possible. To suggest that only three shipyards would be capable of meeting the replacement needs in the required timeline is unreasonable," he said.
Padulo said a truly national shipbuilding strategy requires participation by an Ontario shipyard, and he wants Heddle to be given a "fair, open and transparent opportunity."
The company has three shipyards in Ontario as well as two on the east coast.
According to Padulo, its current capital expenditure objectives include significant upgrades in Thunder Bay, a program that an icebreaker contract would expedite.
Heddle has partnered with a Dutch shipbuilding company in a bid to become a qualifying shipyard for the federal procurement program.
Padulo said Damen Shipyards specializes in constructing ships using modules.
"Damen is coming to Thunder Bay to review the facility, and to our yards in Port Weller and Hamilton. to see how we could fabricate modules in each," he said.
The modules would be assembled to launch a ship at the Port Weller dry dock in St. Catharines, but "it could mean a significant number of jobs in each of our Ontario locations," Padulo said.
Heddle bought the Thunder Bay shipyard in 2016. It includes a dry dock, a large fabrication shop and a large machine shop.
The company formed a strategic partnership with Thunder Bay's Fabmar Metals Inc., which Padulo said has done "a lot of repair work and regular maintenance."
He has previously described Fabmar as the cornerstone of the local shipyard.
Fabmar employees are currently sent to the facility on an as-needed basis.
"Their team typically mobilizes to the yard when we have a ship. We just had an Algoma ship there for about a month. We've done four major projects since we took it over and a number of minor projects for local tug operators, by example," Padulo said.
He hopes to bring a ship into the dry dock every winter, but also to work with Fabmar to expand its existing industrial fabrication work for the forestry and mining sectors.
Padulo's ultimate goal is to operate the Thunder Bay facility 365 days a year.
"The onus is on us to generate sustainable work in the winter, and to make sure we have work in the summer when the ships are all out sailing, to keep our people busy."
He said those efforts will continue exclusive of the current effort to participate in the new icebreaker program.
"My goal is to have over 100 employees there full-time," Padulo said.
