P&WC Takes Aim On Light Turbines

Lighter, more fuel-efficient gas-turbine engines are $1.5 billion closer to reality, or at least closer to creating some 1,500 jobs at Pratt & Whitney Canada’s facilities and its network of suppliers. The company is investing its own money (and the equivalent of $350 million from the Canadian government) in what company President Alain Bellemare told CBC News is “the most important commitment made by [Pratt & Whitney Canada] in its history.” Company facilities at Longueuil and Mississauga, Ont., will bear the brunt of research and development while Pratt & Whitney Canada itself bears the brunt of rhetoric from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The federation says that while the $350 million is “repayable,” P&WC’s “repayment history and omnipresence at the trough” means “it is Canadian taxpayers who will be burned.” Actually, according to CBC News, federation Director John Williamson said in a release, “Giving Pratt & Whitney [Canada] more of taxpayers’ money is like giving a pyromaniac a jerry can and pack of matches.”