General Cable is named by Canada’s Hydro-Québec as its main cable supplier for the next three years, awarding it a contract valued at an estimated $108 million. A press release said that the remainder of the supply will be shared between Prysmian (Ontario) and Southwire (United States), which were awarded contracts respectively worth $17 million and $56 million.
The release from the utility company said that the contract for the cables, which are an indispensable for the numerous projects to come or for repairing the grid during failures, were split between the three companies. “For reliability and safety reasons, Hydro-Québec cannot depend on a single supplier for such an essential product. It noted that,from 2009 to 2014, the Québec cable market has gone from having four suppliers with five plants to a single supplier (General Cable) with two plants (Saint-Jérôme and Shawinigan).
Per a report in the Montreal Gazette, General Cable employees had actively encouraged the utility company to make the deal. “In September, General Cable employees demonstrated outside Hydro’s office in Montreal, saying they feared for their jobs if they did not get the contract. Their union, Unifor, denounced Hydro’s decision to extend the deadline of its call for tenders, warning that the Ste-Jérôme facility would be in danger if foreign companies got the contract.”
Hydro-Québec noted that, in 2014, goods and services purchased from Québec companies reached $3.3 billion, of which 94% was from Québec-based companies.
