Avro Canada - Corporate Demise

Corporate Demise

In 1962, the Hawker Siddeley Group formally dissolved A.V. Roe Canada and transferred all A.V. Roe Canada assets to its newly-formed subsidiary Hawker Siddeley Canada. Avro Aircraft was closed.

Hawker Siddeley Canada, at that time, among its diverse holdings, included major manufacturing units:

• Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F)
• Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (DOSCO)
• Orenda Engines Limited

The former Avro aircraft factory in Malton was sold to de Havilland Canada in the same year. This facility located on the north end of Toronto Pearson International Airport (the village of Malton was incorporated into the City of Mississauga in 1974), was subsequently owned and operated by several others:

• Douglas Aircraft of Canada (1963–1967): manufacturer of the aircraft wings and tail sections (empennage) for the Douglas DC-9;
• McDonnell-Douglas Canada (1967–1997): manufacturer of aircraft wings and related components for the KC-10 and MD-11, MD-80 wings, empennage and cabin floors, and McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet side panels and pylons;
• Boeing Toronto Limited (1997–2005): manufacturer of Boeing 717 wings, parts for the Delta rocket, the Boeing C-17 transport and the Boeing 737 jetliner.

By the late 1990s, Hawker Siddeley Canada had been diminished into a holding company after divesting itself of almost everything other than its pension fund.

DOSCO's assets were nationalized to become DEVCO and SYSCO. CC&F closed its operations and the plants demolished. CC&F's Thunder Bay plant, after several changes of ownership, is now part of Bombardier Transportation.

Orenda Aerospace, as part of the Magellan Aerospace Corporation, is the only remaining original company from the A.V. Roe empire, although greatly diminished in both the size and scope of its operations.

In mid-2005, with the completion of the last shipset of Boeing 717 wings, The Boeing Company discontinued its operations at the former Avro plant.

The Malton plant, which had comprised several very large buildings and hangar-like structures, was demolished in progressive stages from 2004 onwards. The approximate 113 acres (46 ha) of land that the plant resided on at the time of its closure was sold to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (owner of the Toronto Pearson International Airport) and the title was transferred after the property site had completed its environmental soil remediation.

Some of the brickwork of the site's historic main "C" assembly building, next to the high-bay doors that the Arrow, Jetliner, CF-100 and thousands of other aircraft and major assemblies emerged from, was retained by the former Canadian Air and Space Museum in Downsview, Toronto, for future use alongside a number of their Avro displays, which include a full scale replica of the CF-105 Arrow.