Lawyers for Bombardier will be in a Toronto courtroom Tuesday morning to ask a judge to block Metrolinx from cancelling a $770 million contract for light rail vehicles.   

The contract for 182 vehicles includes those meant to carry passengers on the new $5.3-billion Eglinton Crosstown line, scheduled to open in 2021.

At the heart of much of the dispute is the question of whether a test vehicle for the new lines has been delivered according to the agreement.

Metrolinx has said that Bombardier has repeatedly failed to deliver the prototype on time for the line’s opening. The agency has said it believes Bombardier’s injunction is a tactic to tie up the matter in litigation to make sure that no other supplier could deliver the vehicles on time.

Bombardier has denied that allegation. The company maintains that they are able to deliver the vehicles on-time and that cancelling the contract would result in hundreds of jobs being lost. The company believes that Metrolinx’s desire to cancel the contract is not related to its ability to deliver on-time.

The aerospace and transportation company and the provincial transit agency have been locked in a war of words for months over the test vehicles.

Metrolinx has said that it has been in discussions with other possible suppliers amid the dispute.

The hearing is scheduled to get underway at 9 a.m.

-          With files from the Canadian Press