Amid the push to build Canadian, a Quebec train factory is booming

For Claude Michaud, the increasingly loud buzz of machinery, welding and ringing steel is a source of optimism at the train factory where he has worked for much of the past 34 years.

The Alstom plant in La Pocatière, Que., a community of about 6,000 people, has endured waves of layoffs and uneven production over the past two decades. But amid a wave of new Canadian projects, the plant is expanding its factory floor and preparing to hire more staff.

“There’s pride in building trains at home for people here in Canada,” Michaud said in French. “It’s a positive change.”

Alstom, a French company whose Americas headquarters is in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Que., is seeing a rise in orders amid a push by all levels of government to buy Canadian. The company completed its acquisition of Bombardier’s rail-building division in 2021.

Claude Michaud, the union president, has worked at Alstom, formerly Bombardier, for the last 34 years. His father, spouse, father-in-law, brother-in-law and niece have all worked at the plant. He says there’s a sense of pride in building trains for Canadians. (Alexandre Silberman/CBC)

The company is building rail cars for Vancouver’s SkyTrain, subway trains for the Toronto Transit Commission and vehicles for a new Quebec City tramway. It will soon begin work on a $4.7-billion contract to build long-distance passenger cars for VIA Rail.

In La Pocatière, 140 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, the plant has long been one of the region’s largest employers and an economic driver. But it became heavily dependent on export projects, often for the United States.

The number of employees at the plant — more than 1,000 in the 1990s — fell to about 150 in 2021, according to Alstom and the union. The decline threatened the economic viability of keeping the facility in operation. Now, there are about 550 employees and the company is preparing to grow.

An aerial photograph of a large factory and parking lot. — Alstom’s plant is one of the largest employers in La Pocatière, a community of about 6,000 people located 140 kilometres northeast of Quebec City. (Louis-Marie Philidor/CBC)

A shift toward buying Canadian

Olivier Marcil, Alstom’s vice-president of public affairs for Canada, said increasingly protectionist manufacturing policies in the U.S. effectively closed the door to the market south of the border.

The U.S. Federal Transit Administration Buy America policy requires projects receiving federal funding to use materials and final products, including buses, trains and ferries, manufactured in the United States. The threshold of percentage of domestic components was raised between 2016 and 2021.

“When you look at the megatrend that we’ve experienced over the last decades — the United States were asking a lot from manufacturers to build local, right? While Canada was not asking anything,” he said.

“If everybody’s protecting their industry, everybody’s nurturing their industry — Canada must come at par with those and do the same.”

A man in an orange safety vest, goggles and a hard hat stands on a factory floor. — Olivier Marcil, vice-president of public affairs for Alstom in Canada, at the company’s prototype centre in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Que. Marcil says Buy American protectionist policies for transit hurt Canadian-based manufacturers. (Alexandre Silberman/CBC)

Rebuilding manufacturing capacity

Dan Breznitz, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, said there are challenges to restoring manufacturing in sectors such as rail.

He said Canada needs to be more strategic about which industries it chooses to invest in as part of a return to manufacturing.

“We have to find the people, we have to find the manufacturing, we have to find the other factories that produce everything that you need to make rail,” said Breznitz, who studies how innovation and government policy affect industries.

“The problem is, if you don’t do it for 20 to 30 years you lose the skills.”

A man in a suit and glasses stands in front of a train car under construction. — Frédéric Platteeuw, Alstom’s site manager for La Pocatière, said the facility is undergoing a major transformation to be able to build long-distance train cars for VIA Rail. (Alexandre Silberman/CBC)

Nearly a decade of work

For Alstom, the VIA Rail project will generate manufacturing work for nearly a decade, with additional employment supported by a 15-year agreement for technical support and spare parts.

The new long-distance train cars will be built in La Pocatière, with final assembly in Thunder Bay.

Frédéric Platteeuw, Alstom’s site manager in La Pocatière, said the facility will have to scale up and adapt to focus entirely on the contract for the Crown corporation.

“It’s a real challenge, such a project, because it will push us to rethink all the layout,” he said. “To optimize our surface, to optimize our work, to develop new technology.”

For employees like Michaud, the new contract signals a long-awaited shift from the federal government. As a union leader, he pushed for years for the federal government to introduce Canadian-content requirements for trains.

A major blow came in 2018, when a $989-million contract for VIA Rail’s Quebec City-Windsor corridor fleet was awarded to German company Siemens, which built the train cars in California.

Michaud followed in the footsteps of his father, who built the first cars to roll out of the plant for the Montreal Metro. He said it’s refreshing to see the plant, where other members of his family work, come back to life with Canadian projects.

“We see that the government is finally listening,” he said. “A dollar invested in Quebec and in Canada is money that stays in our country.”