Weir Canada awarded contract to overhaul Windsor, Victoria

The federal government intends to sole-source a contract to repair and overhaul two of the navy’s used submarines.

Ottawa issued an advanced contract award notice Friday indicating Weir Canada Inc. will do the work on HMCS Windsor and HMCS Victoria.

"It is intended to negotiate a contract with Weir Canada Inc., Ottawa, Ontario, the exclusive Canadian representative for Strachan and Henshaw from (the United Kingdom) which is the equipment original manufacturer for the weapons handling and discharge systems and submarine engineering systems in the Victoria-class submarines and have information concerning the design, function, operation and safety analyses used in these systems," the notice says.

"Hence, (Weir) is deemed to be the sole company having the knowledge and experience required to successfully achieve these repairs and overhauls for Victoria’s and Windsor’s extended docking work periods."

The work on Victoria, which is based in Esquimalt, B.C., is slated to start this month and stretch until June 2008. Victoria, which stopped sailing last summer, won’t be operational until the spring of 2009.

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