By William Crooks
Local Journalism Initiative
The Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB) was forced to cancel 10 bus routes Friday morning after Quebec’s Ministry of Transport ordered a sudden inspection of all Generation 3 electric buses in its fleet. The move came after a fire involving one a Lion electric bus earlier in the week in Montreal, raising fresh questions about the reliability of the technology the board has championed in recent years.
“We received an instruction at 10:07 p.m. last night (Thursday, Sept. 11) that all electric buses were to be immobilized, not on the road, and needed to be inspected,” ETSB Chair Mike Murray said in conversation with The Record Sept. 12. “There seems to be [an] apprehend problem with some part of the wiring in some of the electric buses.”
Sudden disruption
The ETSB operates 20 Generation 3 electric buses, all of which were pulled from service. The board scrambled Friday morning to reorganize, relying on spare diesel buses it had retained after the bankruptcy of Lion Electric and delays in new vehicle deliveries. Despite the backup fleet, Murray confirmed that about 400 to 500 students in the eastern sector—stretching from Drummondville through Sherbrooke to the U.S. border—were left without school transportation.
“By the end of the day, we’re supposed to have inspected them all,” Murray said. Mechanics had already completed eight inspections by late morning and were working to finish the rest.
Parents were alerted before 5 a.m. through a mass text system originally designed for emergencies. “This was certainly an emergency, so every family got a personal text message to alert them that their bus run would either be cancelled or possibly delayed where we had rescheduled the run,” Murray explained.
Mixed signals from Quebec
The sudden order initially applied to all electric buses, but officials later clarified that only the Generation 3 models required inspections. Generation 4 buses, introduced this year, remained in service, including some in the Sherbrooke area.
Murray criticized the abruptness of the directive. “I’m wondering why this fire was different from the fire that happened in Coaticook last spring,” he said. “There’s no explanation why, when we’ve been operating a lot of these buses for four or five years, the panic was on to stop everything today.”
He added that the school board had not been consulted in advance and received the inspection protocol only the morning after the shutdown order. “We still don’t know where we are,” he said. “The inspection will be followed by, I gather, a corrective. If it’s wiring, we can start rewiring immediately and put the buses back in service by Monday.”
No way back to diesel
Asked whether the ETSB might consider buying more diesel buses as backups, Murray said that option has effectively been closed. “The Ministry of Transport has informed everybody that they will not permit us to license any new diesel bus,” he explained. The ETSB has been “stockpiling” older diesel vehicles to cover emergencies like this one, but those reserves are finite.
A setback in electrification
The disruption marks a possible setback in the board’s ongoing electrification plan, first reported in January. At that time, the ETSB operated 23 electric buses and was considering adding 14 more for the next school year.
That earlier effort, officials stressed, was motivated less by immediate cost savings than by long-term environmental responsibility. “It’s less about the budget and more about contributing to the green economy,” ETSB Secretary General Shawn Champigny said earlier this year.
Despite reliability concerns, the ETSB had described its fleet as safe and efficient, noting government subsidies, fuel savings of about $8,000 per bus annually, and new charging infrastructure in Lennoxville, Stanstead, and Magog.
Looking ahead
The current crisis underscores the challenges of balancing innovation with day-to-day service reliability. For Murray, the priority remains clear: “The impact falls on students and on the families that have concerns about getting their kids to school.”
He praised parents for their cooperation during the disruption. “Parents have as usual risen to the occasion and we’re very grateful to the ones that brought their kids to school today.”