PRINCE.EDWARD.ISLAND (CBC) - A retired school bus mechanic from Summerside says he saw rust problems 20 years ago similar to those that this week took all of P.E.I.'s school buses off the road.

James Palmer, the foreman at the Western board's school bus depot in Summerside for 20 years, told CBC News Thursday calls to replace the older vehicles were ignored by successive governments. Palmer retired in 2005, just before government mechanics took over maintenance from the school boards.

On Wednesday, the provincial government made a sudden decision to pull all school buses off the road on Thursday and Friday for inspections. Corrosion bad enough to raise concerns about the structural integrity of buses was found on some older models.

Palmer said he wasn't the least bit surprised when he heard about the corrosion problems this week.

"I don't know who this fellow is that made this amazing discovery," said Palmer. "I seen that 20 years ago; that's nothing new to me.

"It shouldn't be new to most mechanics here on the Island, I wouldn't think."

Mechanics can only do so much patching to keep old buses running, Palmer said, and successive governments on P.E.I. have failed to modernize the fleet.

"Part of the problem is they can't afford, or they don't put enough, new buses on the road," he said.

"When I was there, we run a fleet of 60. They put two buses on the road, two new ones per year. Some years, that's all we got, so how do you ever expect to get ahead?"

Palmer said other provinces retire their buses after 12 years and that P.E.I. should do the same. More than a third of the Island's school buses are 14 or more years old, with the oldest being 20.

Government hasty: Opposition

Transportation critic Mike Currie says government acted hastily by pulling the entire fleet of school buses with no backup plan.

Currie said there was no need to throw thousands of households into disarray for a problem that government has known about for two years, when the auditor general first raised the issue.

"Islanders today were certainly put out of the way to take every school bus off the road when there was only a certain number that probably had some rust," he said.

"I'm not moving away from safety, but I think they threw their hands up in the air and just said it was a crisis. They knew about this a long time ago."

Transportation Minister Ron MacKinley, who pulled the fleet this week, heavily criticized the previous Tory government two years ago for the same problem. Currie was in the cabinet at the time, though he had moved out of the transportation portfolio and into development.

MacKinley said his government, which was elected last May, acted quickly enough.

"I mean, I don't go down and inspect these buses myself. There's directions gone out there," he said. "I criticized it; now I'm in a position to do something."

Union meeting with government

The union representing the Island's 277 school bus drivers told CBC News Thursday the Auditor General and MacKinley aren't the only ones who raised concerns years ago.

Myles Noye, president of the union local of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said the union has also been after the government about the buses. Members have been advocating the need to rotate the bus fleet on a timely basis to avoid a situation like the one the province is dealing with this week.

Noye said a 12-year rotation would be ideal, and a number of other provinces already have similar programs in place. CUPE officials plan to meet with government officials on Friday to make that case.

A long-term commitment is necessary to ensure the safety of Island school children, said Noye.

The province hopes to have the bus inspections completed by Monday. It's not clear what will happen if a large number of buses are found to be unsafe. Bus service is expected to return, but full service may not be available.

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