PEIP.E.I. is not pulling its fleet of LION Electric school buses off the road after one caught fire in Montreal earlier this week, but the province said extra safety precautions are being taken.Province says additional maintenance checks will be done on the busesDelaney Kelly · CBC News · Posted: Sep 12, 2025 5:12 PM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours agoP.E.I.’s fleet of LION Electric buses still on the road after school bus caught fire in QuebecP.E.I.’s Department of Transportation says safety precautions are being taken with the Island’s LION Electric school buses. This, after one caught on fire in Montreal and Quebec pulled its entire fleet from service. CBC’s Stacey Janzer has more.P.E.I. is not pulling its fleet of LION Electric school buses off the road after one caught fire in Montreal earlier this week, but the province said extra safety precautions are being taken.The cause of the fire is under investigation by Transport Canada. In the meantime, Quebec’s Education Ministry is halting the service of 1,200 LION school buses, pulling them off the road for inspection. There were no injuries in that fire; the bus driver managed to get the five children who were on board off safely. WATCH | School bus erupts into flame: 5 children and driver escape before electric school bus catches fire in MontrealElectric vehicle manufacturer LION says it’s looking into what happened after the heating system on one of its buses caught fire. Five children and a driver managed to exit the bus unharmed. Here on P.E.I., the Island’s buses will be undergoing additional maintenance checks this weekend. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure declined a CBC News request for an interview, but said in a statement they are closely monitoring the situation. “Transport Canada has not contacted the province concerning LION buses operating in P.E.I… [W]hile P.E.I. school buses are regularly inspected and maintained, as a precaution, additional maintenance checks will be conducted,” the statement said.There are 107 LION electric school buses on the Island, making up about a third of the fleet.The Department of Transportation said the LION buses in this province “have not experienced the same issues as in Quebec” but said “should any actions be required to safeguard the well-being of students, we will take appropriate and timely action.”‘It’s the same fleet of buses’The province’s Liberal education critic, recently elected MLA Carolyn Simpson, said the government needs to act quickly on inspections.”It’s critical that it happens here, from the perspective of, it’s the same fleet of buses,” she said.”If a bus caught fire in one area of the country then we have to ensure that the fleet that we have operating, carrying thousands of children to and from school, [is] in fact safe to do so.”Lion School bus are staying on Island roads but additional maintenance checks are set to take place this weekend. (Lion Electric)Simpson said that government should also have a backup plan in place that won’t put a burden on parents.”[W]hether that’s with…companies such as T3, or others that would help with the transportation of children in the short term, so that children are able to continue to go to and from school…and that pressure is not placed back on families,” she said. “That could be quite difficult to to do for many.”The province said buses will be pulled from the fleet for repairs if necessary, and that schools and parents will be “promptly notified” if any school bus services are impacted. ABOUT THE AUTHORDelaney Kelly is a journalist with CBC P.E.I. who studied journalism at Concordia University. She was previously a reporter at Iori:wase in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory. With files from Stacey Janzer
LION Electric buses still on the road in P.E.I. after school bus caught fire in Quebec
