TORONTO - The giant pandas have landed.
Breeding pair Er Shun, 5, and Da Mao, 4, touched down in a FedEx aircraft shortly before 11 a.m. Monday to much fanfare, including a greeting from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Guests clutched stuffed pandas as a band enlisted for the occasion played "O Canada" and throngs of media jockeyed for shots of the so-called Panda Express as it taxied down the runway at a FedEx depot just outside Toronto.
FedEx prepared special enclosures for the animals inside the panda-themed aircraft. Veterinarians from the Toronto Zoo rode with the pair, along with bamboo, water and apples for them to snack on, officials said. The flight took about 18 hours.
The pandas were being transported to the Toronto Zoo on Monday afternoon. They will be quarantined for a month, with the exhibit set to open in May.
The pandas, on loan to the Toronto Zoo from China, will remain in the city for five years before moving to the Calgary Zoo for another five years. Officials hope the pair will breed during their time in Canada.
According to an internal memorandum, Harper and former environment minister Jim Prentice were instrumental in securing the deal that will land the pandas, Da Mao and Er Shun, in Canada for the 10-year stay.
"Attempts to strike a deal on pandas have been floated for more than a decade, but only began to progress quickly when Prime Minister Harper personally raised the matter with Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the National People's Congress, in Beijing in December 2009, and former Minister Prentice signed a letter of support on behalf of the Government of Canada," said the memo, prepared for the office of Environment Minister Peter Kent.
The memo was released through access to information legislation, but only following an investigation by the office of Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault. The investigation concluded that Environment Canada had inappropriately responded to a 2012 request for the memo from Postmedia News by denying access to sections that mentioned Harper as well as other details about the loan of the bears.
Environment Canada also attempted to redact the word "loan" from the memo's title - "Giant panda loan for Canadian zoos" - and other references to the "loan" throughout the document. It revised these redactions following the investigation.
The newly released version of the memo, dated Oct. 25, 2011, suggested that the Chinese government wanted Harper to personally make a trip to China to announce the panda deal, which will also require the two zoos to collectively pay about $10 million over the next decade for panda conservation efforts.
- With files from Mike De Souza, Postmedia News
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