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McGuinty touts hydrogen train
By THE CHRONICLE-JOURNAL AND THE CANADIAN PRESS
Friday, September 14, 2007

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Talks are underway between the province of Ontario and Bombardier to build one of the world‘s first hydrogen-powered commuter trains, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday during a stop at the company‘s Thunder Bay plant.
While still in its preliminary stages, McGuinty said the hydrogen train is exactly the type of initiative envisioned when the government created the $650-million Next Generation Jobs Fund which the Liberals have pledged to expand by another $500 million after the Oct. 10 provincial election.
“It‘s our goal to get a prototype on the rails here in Ontario within three years of the project launch,” McGuinty told a small audience of plant workers.
Along with a $17.5-billion, 12-year investment to build 52 public transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton, McGuinty said the initiatives will lead to more jobs in Northern Ontario and a cleaner environment in the south.
“We can secure existing jobs and create more jobs here in the north, right here at this facility,” he said. “We can develop a new product, a hydrogen powered train . . . then we can sell that product to a world that is hungry for a better way to meet its transit needs while better protecting their environment,” he said.
The premier said after he visited the Bombardier plant in May, he “came away in awe” at the work that has been done here.
“I‘m talking about the exceptional quality of the workmanship. I‘m talking about the high productivity of our workers.
“I‘m talking about the relentless pursuit of innovation,” he said.
“And, I‘m talking about a product that is irresistible to buyers around the world.
“I love the energy in this place,” McGuinty said.
The Thunder Bay facility is currently building 20 bi-level train cars for Go Transit, and has built 50 cars since 2003.
In the last four years, all GO Transit bi-level cars have been built in Thunder Bay and they will continue to be built until 2010.
“The subway and GO Transit cars you build here are a big part of the future of this province,” McGuinty said.
“Innovation together with the skills and education of our people is key to creating and attracting the high wage, high quality jobs we want for our people today, and in the future,” he said.
Part of a whirlwind day-long campaign tour of Northern Ontario, the stop at the plant was largely positive, in stark contrast to the barrage of criticism he received earlier in the day over the thousands of lost jobs in Northern Ontario‘s beleaguered forestry sector.
Outside the Bombardier plant, which is across the street from a Bowater pulp and paper mill, the campaign caravan was met by a handful of protesters staging a “job graveyard” to draw attention to jobs that have been lost at companies such as Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and Domtar.
Pressed about foreign ownership of Ontario‘s mines and forestry job losses during an earlier stop in Sudbury, McGuinty said the province would boost the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund to $100 million from $60 million, which he said was intended to keep hope alive.
“There are some real challenges,” he said. “In a position of leadership, you never enjoy the luxury of despair. Our responsibility is to engender hope and we do that with meaningful, practical policies.”
The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, with its renewed focus on jobs, is just such a “meaningful” policy, he suggested.
“I call $1 billion that we‘ve come to the table with for the forestry sector significant,” he said.
“It‘s led to the opening of and the expansion of some mills. We‘d like to be able to say that we‘re never, ever going to lose a single job in Northern Ontario or throughout the rest of the province either, but the big picture, the grand scheme of things, is we‘re ahead by about 340,000 more jobs.”
“We will remain relentless in terms of our supports that we provide for Northern Ontario.”
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