Coulson Aircrane says the Saskatchewan government has agreed to pay more than twice what it should have for four firefighting aircraft — a decision the B.C.-based company says will cost Saskatchewan taxpayers an extra $100 million.
Coulson, one of the leading companies in the world for retrofitting planes for firefighting, made the claim last month in an application to the Court of King’s Bench.
“We are concerned the government of Saskatchewan has awarded a very large (over $187,000,000) contract for forest fire airplanes, without affording any reasonable opportunity to Coulson or any other competitor to bid on the contract,” says an affidavit filed by company president Britt Coulson.
Coulson is asking the court to quash the sale and order a fair, transparent competition.
Britt Coulson, president and COO of Coulson Aircrane, says his company was denied an opportunity to bid on Saskatchewan’s firefighting plane purchase. (Coulsongroup.com)
In February, cabinet approved the purchase of four Q400 planes, retrofitted for firefighting purposes, from B.C.-based Conair Group, Coulson’s chief competitor, for $187,042,000 payable in increments over the next four years. Conair delivered the first plane this summer.
Earlier this year, the Saskatchewan government was being widely criticized during the spring’s forest fire crisis because several planes in its fleet were out of service, some because of a lack of parts. The province says the new planes will help Saskatchewan tackle future crises more effectively.
Coulson says his company and Conair “are the only two major suppliers of airtankers globally.” In his affidavit, Coulson says his company “likely could have provided Saskatchewan with four comparable airplanes for approximately $85,600,000, saving Saskatchewan more than $100,000,000.”
He says the government failed to hold a proper, competitive tendering process, resulting in Conair making “an immense profit.”
The Saskatchewan government concluded Conair was the only manufacture whose planes met the province’s predetermined criteria. (Conair.ca)
Coulson says a used Q400 plane can be purchased for about $5 million and can be retrofitted for firefighting for an additional $5 million.
But Conair is charging $46,760,500 per plane.
“Therefore, it is my understanding that Conair stands to profit $36,760,500.00 per plane or $147,042,000.00 in total,” Coulson writes.
Conair has declined to comment, as the matter is before the courts.
‘A reasonable apprehension of bias’
In the application, the company says it can only think of one explanation for Saskatchewan’s “unreasonable” decision — bias.
“A reasonable apprehension of bias is plainly present and offers the only cogent rationale for why a competitive bid process was not followed,” Coulson argues.
Coulson points out that Peter Boniface, the executive director of air operations for the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) and key decision maker on the purchase, was Conair’s director of maintenance from 2006 to 2013.
“A governmental employee sole-sourcing a $187,042,000.00 [contract] from their past employer and taking active steps to avoid the standard procurement policies and not exploring cost saving options at all … creates a clear reasonable apprehension of bias in making the decision,” the court application says.
Peter Boniface, the executive director of air operations for the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, was a key decision-maker in the government’s recent purchase of firefighting planes. (LinkedIn)
Coulson says the court doesn’t have to conclude that this deal was influenced by “nefarious or illegal conduct, such as the presence of bribes or kickbacks,” to find there was bias, it merely has to find that the decision maker was “influenced by an extraneous factor such as friendship with Conair employees, directors or owners.”
CBC asked the Saskatchewan government about Coulson’s allegations, but it didn’t respond to the questions, instead issuing a brief statement declining to comment because the matter is before the courts.
However, the government did address some of the issues in court documents.
In an April 17, 2025, email filed in court, the Saskatchewan government told Coulson its procurement process was “fair, open and transparent.” It said Coulson’s planes were evaluated but they “failed based on size requirements.”
Regarding Coulson’s allegations of bias, the government said, “The decision to contract with Conair was in no way the result of Peter Boniface’s previous employment, but was a result of the Conair product being the only aircraft which could meet the SPSA’s reasonable criteria.”
Coulson says those criteria are where the problems all began.
Process favoured Conair, Coulson argues
In early 2022, the SPSA hired an independent third party, which the government refuses to name, to look for firefighting planes that met criteria prescribed by the province.
Coulson says the fix was in from the very beginning, because Conair was the only manufacturer that offered planes that met Saskatchewan’s criteria.
“The criteria was deliberately designed to influence and restrict the results of the recommendation, so that the report … would recommend the planes be sourced from Conair,” the application says.
Both Conair and Coulson retrofit existing planes for firefighting purposes. (Conair.ca)
The province stipulated that it needed a plane that has a 10,000-litre capacity tank, is capable of speeds greater than 270 knots and has a range of 640 to 700 nautical miles.
Coulson says Conair’s planes, “have a top speed of 278 knots and a range of 670 to 700 nautical miles, which are remarkable similar to the [government’s] speed and range criteria.” In addition, he says Conair is the only manufacturer that sells retrofitted planes with a tank size of exactly 10,000 litres.
Coulson says his planes have a top speed far greater than 270 knots and a range of 2,000 nautical miles, almost three times what is listed in the criteria. In addition, Coulson’s tanks are larger than 10,000 litres, coming in at 15,000.
“There is no bona fide reason for the requesting a tank capacity of 10,000 liters as it excludes airplanes which may offer larger capacity tanks,” the application says.
“It is obvious that the airplanes manufactured by Coulson offer better performance having larger tanks and better range, at a much lower price than Conair,” Coulson adds in his affidavit.
Does size matter?
Coulson acknowledges his planes do not satisfy the government’s size criteria.
The government wants planes with tails no taller than 30 feet, but Coulson’s offering is 37 feet, six inches.
The tail on Coulson’s retrofitted 737 is 7 feet 6 inches taller than the Saskatchewan government’s criterion. (Coulsongroup.com)
In its April 2025 email to Coulson, the province says Coulson’s failure to meet the size criteria is why its planes weren’t considered, adding “It is unreasonable to expect that, in addition to purchasing aircraft, the SPSA ought to incur further expense to modify its existing infrastructure to accommodate larger aircraft.”
The problem with size appears to be related to the height of the tail, Coulson says — that the tail of Coulson’s 737 is too high to fit into some government hangars.
But he says this issue is a red herring, as firefighting planes are typically not stored in hangars during fire season. Coulson says they can be stored in any available commercial hangar during the off season, as 737 planes are pretty common.
Also, Coulson says, even if the government wanted to store planes in hangars during the fire season and Coulson’s 737 was too big, that is a fixable problem that could have been addressed in a fair, transparent tender process.
“The cost of building new hangars or renovating existing hangars to have seven more feet of clearance would be substantially less than the approximate $100,000,000.00 of savings the SPSA could have obtained through buying the Coulson 737s instead of the Q400s at the price charged by Conair.”
Finally, Coulson says that even if the government was set on buying Q400 planes, he still could have put in a bid.
He says his company’s internal analysis shows, “it would be able to produce and sell those planes for a similar price to what Coulson sells the Coulson 737 for, i.e. $21.4 million, if not less.”
How the government chose Conair
Coulson says he first heard of this opportunity in late May 2024, weeks after the government had already awarded the $187-million deal to Conair.
Coulson says this caused him “serious concern,” because his entire business is built around learning of and bidding on opportunities just like this.
“It would have been the first time Coulson had missed a public competition, to my knowledge.”
On June 4, 2024, he reached out directly to Boniface by email to ask how the contract was bid on and awarded.
Boniface replied by saying the province first set criteria for the sorts of planes they needed, then hired a company, by tender, to look for what was available, settling on the Q400 as the best option.
“An Advance Contract Award notification (ACAN) was publicly posted for 28 days and completed prior to the agency entering negotiations with the selected vendor of the Q400,” Boniface wrote.
An ACAN is a public notification that the government intends to sole-source a purchase, giving other vendors the opportunity to argue for a public competition instead.
In its ACAN, posted April 10, 2024, the government said it was planning to purchase four Q400s from Conair because it is “the only supplier that meets SPSA’s requirements for this procurement.”
The deadline for reply was 14 days later — April 24.
The key details of the purchase had been hammered out and announced publicly weeks before the ACAN was posted.
On March 20, 2024, the province announced news release that it was purchasing four Q400s “for an approximate cost of $187.06 million.” In fact, emails obtained by Coulson through an access to information request show that discussions about the proposed transaction with Conair had been ongoing for months.
CBC asked the province why Boniface said Saskatchewan didn’t enter negotiations with Conair until after the ACAN’s public posting when the deal was actually announced before the ACAN was posted. CBC also asked why Boniface told Coulson the posting was up for 28 days when it was in fact up for just 14.
It didn’t reply.
On March 20, 2024, three weeks before the government put out it’s Advance Notice of Contract Award, the province announced by news release that it had decided to purchase four planes from Conair for $187 million. (saskatchewan.ca)
Coulson says he’s never heard of a contract for firefighting planes being awarded through an ACAN, saying it’s “the first time I have become aware of a contract being awarded to a competitor in Canada without first being aware of the public competition taking place.”
“This was not because we missed it — it was because no public competition took place.”
Coulson says he can’t help but conclude, “that Conair and SPSA purposefully kept their negotiations private.”
He said in every other case he’s aware of, governments have gone out of their way to ensure his company is aware of the opportunity to foster competition in this small industry that primarily has just two competitors, Conair and Coulson.
“Typically the party posting the competition will market the competition and make contact directly with Coulson and other suppliers to ensure we are aware of the competition and in order to get as many bids as possible,” Coulson said, adding that given his time at Conair, Boniface would have known of this practice.
Coulson says the government’s third-party researcher failed to reach out to anyone from his company. In a letter back to Boniface, Coulson expressed surprise at this failure.
“In our experience selling Large Airtankers to Government Agencies, there has always [been] a fair and open competition through a public RFP and to date we have always beat out the Q400 as the best value,” Coulson wrote.
Coulson says it’s 737 is a better plane than Conair’s Q400 and would cost taxpayers $100M less. (Coulsongroup.com)
Coulson says Saskatchewan’s approach of “awarding a fixed price contract directly to a single supplier without first engaging in a public competitive tender process — is a substantial deviation from standard industry practice.”
He says it’s also a violation of many of Saskatchewan’s procurement policies.
For that reason, among many, Coulson argues the Conair contract should be set aside and a competition should be held.
“The decisions by the SPSA, the Minister, and the Lieutenant Governor to sole source an $187 million contract and not follow any of the above procedures or policies breached the legitimate expectations of Coulson Aircrane.”
Province wants case thrown out
In court last week, Coulson argued that the province should hand over all documentation the government considered in making this decision.
The province is refusing, arguing that instead the court should throw out Coulson’s application.
The province says Coulson has known about this contract for more than a year and should have brought this application sooner if it really believed it had merit.
In addition, the province says judicial reviews like this are not designed to assess the merits of the government’s policy decisions, but only to assess whether the decision-maker had the authority to do what they did.
In other words, the province says, “even if the decision under review is found to be unreasonable or incorrect (which Saskatchewan denies), this court should refuse to grant a remedy,” and therefore not hear Coulson’s case.
Saskatchewan says a decision to end Conair’s contract would be fraught with trouble, given that the company has already delivered its first aircraft.
“Granting of any remedy sought in relation to cancellation of the purchase agreement with Conair would cause substantial hardship and/or substantial prejudice to Saskatchewan which may include hindering Saskatchewan’s firefighting efforts,” the government said in its written response to Coulson’s application.
In court, Coulson’s lawyer Reilly Pollard said the government’s refusal to provide documentation could lead someone to conclude “they’re covering something up,” an allegation the government’s lawyer quickly disputed.
The case will likely be back in court later this fall.