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Calgary Herald

Why the Calgary Fire Department doesn't 'buy Canadian' as trade war with U.S. continues

Despite a movement to 'buy Canadian' amid the ongoing trade war between Canada and the United States, it's virtually impossible for the Calgary Fire Department to support local when procuring new vehicles. Article content Article content That's because most fire truck manufacturing is based in the United States, said Calgary fire Chief Steven Dongworth. And due to 'industry consolidation,' he added there are only a few large suppliers the Calgary Fire Department can source vehicles from. Article content Article content 'There's only so many choices, especially when you're a large department,' Dongworth said. 'There's certainly some more custom and smaller companies, but when you're the size of a metropolitan-size department, as Calgary is, you end up having the larger suppliers bid because they're the only ones that have the capacity to build in that volume.' Article content Article content Three U.S. companies now control most of North America's fire truck manufacturing sector: REV Group, Oshkosh Corp. and Rosenbauer. Dongworth speculated their cornering of the market may be why fire trucks cost significantly more now than they did pre-pandemic, and why the wait times for those engines to arrive in Calgary can last upwards of four years. Article content '(Consolidation) often leads to price increases, I think, because it decreases competition in some ways,' Dongworth said. Article content A recent New York Times investigation, in the wake of the California wildfires that ravaged parts of Los Angeles in January, delved into the role private equity firms have played in the shrinking ownership concentration of the fire truck manufacturing sector. Article content The industry's consolidation has spurred an investigation, launched earlier this month, by two U.S. senators — Democrat Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, and Republican Jim Banks, of Indiana. Their bipartisan probe will zero in on a private equity firm called American Industrial Partners (AIP), which acquired four of the largest fire truck manufacturers in the U.S. before consolidating them into REV Group.