Can Ottawa’s legal intervention save thousands of autoworker jobs in Brampton?

Thousands of autoworkers at Brampton’s Stellantis plant are once again in the dark as the company refuses to provide concrete information about the future of its giant assembly plant in the city, after announcing a significant shift of manufacturing to the United States. 

A month ago, the more than 3,000 employees at the Brampton facility were left stunned when Stellantis informed them—through a robocall—that plans for the next generation Jeep Compass, including an electric model, originally set to be manufactured in Brampton, were shifting to Illinois. The news followed nearly a year of uncertainty after Stellantis paused an electrification retooling effort at the Brampton plant back in February due to tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. The pause was only meant to last a few weeks, but Stellantis extended it for months, keeping union officials and employees in the dark and out of work. 

Stellantis employees have told The Pointer they are now struggling to feed their families, living hand-to-mouth, and are uncertain about what they will do if the union and federal government are unsuccessful in their effort to pressure Stellantis to reverse its decision.

On November 3, at the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians on Industry and Technology, Melanie Joly, the Minister of Industry, informed MPs that the federal government has initiated 30 days of formal dispute resolution. Details of what this process actually entails have not been shared. 

According to Joly, the goal is to ensure Stellantis abides by contracts it has signed with the federal government to keep a certain level of production in Canada in exchange for taxpayer-funded assistance. 

François-Philippe Champagne, the former minister of Innovation, Science and Industry of Canada, earlier this year shared a 2023 letter from Stellantis, in which the automaker described the Brampton retooling as a “lynchpin” of its commitment to maintain a footprint in Canada.

A 2023 letter shared by former industry minister François-Philippe Champagne outlining Stellantis’s 2023 commitment to modernize the Brampton Assembly Plant, calling it a “lynchpin” of its footprint in Canada.

The contract signed between the auto manufacturer and the federal government outlined that in exchange for the billions of local investment from the company, Ottawa committed $529 million to support the retooling of Stellantis plants in Brampton and Windsor to produce electric vehicles. 

As the resolution process now underway is not an official legal proceeding, it’s unclear if Stellantis is even required to participate. 

Minister Joly did not respond to questions about the details of the resolution process.

The Pointer also contacted Brampton’s Members of Parliament, asking for details about steps they have taken to advocate for Brampton workers and to push Stellantis to maintain production at the Brampton Assembly Plant. They did not respond.

Vito Beato, the president of Unifor Local 1285 which represents Brampton’s autoworkers, says union officials met with Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa following the union’s rally on October 29. He said Filosa maintained a similar stance as in the previous meetings with Stellantis officials, pointing to the tariffs imposed by the U.S. government on automobiles and auto parts which were not in compliance with the Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement (CUSMA) as the reason for the turmoil engulfing the Brampton facility. Nothing shared during the meeting was encouraging to Beato.

"They still talk about big plans for Brampton, but only if there is tariff relief and a CUSMA deal. So they're still saying the same thing," he said. "We challenged that position, emphasizing that the Brampton assembly plant has been profitable for many years, particularly from 2020 to 2023, when we produced the Challenger, Charger, and 300 models. During that period, the company made substantial profits.”

Vito Beato, president of Unifor Local 1285, helped kick off the ongoing Brampton rally outside the Stellantis plant on October 29.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

Beato says the company is engaging in “double talk”, and not offering any real answers or solutions for the thousands of workers in Brampton, many of whom have dedicated years of their lives to the company. 

"They're talking about these transfers to Windsor. They're talking about protecting our members and big plans for Brampton. I believe it's all a smoke show," he said. "They're talking out of both sides of their mouth.”

The possibility of transferring 1,500 workers from Brampton to the Windsor plant, which is adding a third shift, has also been floated. Beato has made it clear this is not a solution his membership accepts.  

"The answer to the Brampton assembly plant is the commitment that they made with the Compass or the vehicle assembly manufacturing, not transfers." Beato said there is only one solution: to honour the contract that Stellantis signed, committing to electric, hybrid and some traditional Jeep Compass production in Brampton.

He commended Joly and the federal government for the work they have done since the stunning October 14 announcement by Stellantis, including the reduction of counter-tariffs which helped the company. 

In April, the federal government set quotas for Canadian automakers, allowing them to import vehicles from the United States, free of the counter-tariffs imposed by the Canadian government in response to Trump’s trade war. On October 23, shortly after Stellantis caved to U.S. pressure and announced the production shift from Brampton to Illinois, the federal government countered the American move by reducing Stellantis’s tariff-free quota by 50 percent. General Motors also saw its import quota reduced by 24.2 percent after it announced it would be cutting back production at its Oshawa and Ingersoll facilities. 

“Imposing tariffs on cars sold in Canada but not built here is a strong measure, and pursuing dispute resolution is another valuable tool,” Beato said. 

Joly, who attended the Brampton Unifor rally in October, has maintained the government expects Stellantis “to honour their legally binding commitments to the Government of Canada.”

This was made clear to Filosa in a letter sent by Joly on October 15, and discussed during a parliamentary committee meeting on October 20 when Jeff Hines, the then Canadian CEO of Stellantis (he is now Senior Vice President, North America Fleet Solutions, Stellantis North America), was questioned. 

At the November 3 meeting, Joly, speaking in French, called the auto sector a “cornerstone” of the Canadian economy and stressed that it supports more than 125,000 direct jobs and hundreds of thousands of others across the country.

"These actions are not symbolic," she said of the federal government’s efforts to keep Stellantis in Brampton.

"They're the direct consequence of the violation of clear commitments. In fact, we need to be clear and direct toward the company: when a commitment toward the Canadian government is not respected on behalf of Canadian workers, there are consequences. Our automobile industry adds $17 billion per year to our GDP, supports many communities, and is even key to the success of our middle class in Canada.”

Joly told the committee that the $529 million Ottawa approved for Stellantis through the Strategic Innovation Fund to retool operations at the Brampton and Windsor plants was contingent on keeping the production at both facilities. The second deal she mentioned was a Special Contribution Agreement, which Ottawa and Queens Park inked as a joint venture with Stellantis, LG Energy Solutions, and several other automakers under the federal-provincial EV funding framework, to build the NextStar battery plant in Windsor. The federal and provincial governments have committed up to $15 billion in production subsidies, one-third of which will be provided by the province. Media reports suggest the money is contingent on Stellantis maintaining operations at its Brampton assembly plant. 

"It is actually linked to the fact that the Brampton facility must be operating," she emphasized.

"If the Brampton facility ceases its production, there will be a violation of a contract."

The Stellantis media relations team did not respond to requests for comment or answer questions about whether the company has received any formal notice regarding the dispute resolution process.

On October 29, under questioning by MPs in Ottawa, Hines said the Brampton plant is not closed and the company is looking for ways to continue operating in the city in a “commercially viable” way.

While he assured the committee that Stellantis is committed to bringing new plans for Brampton, which will replace the Jeep Compass production, he stressed that tariff uncertainty is creating a significant barrier.

"What we need, and what I think the industry needs collectively, is clearly some stability and trade conversation so we can adjust and invest accordingly,” he said. He provided no details or timelines for news about the Brampton plant. 

"We certainly want to work with both sides of the government to come to a solution that maintains jobs and does the best we can to keep Canadian jobs, maintain Canadian manufacturing, and keep our folks at Brampton working with a long-term, sustainable operation.” 

The effort to transition the Brampton auto assembly to manufacture the next-generation Jeep Compass has been paused since late February. 

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

Fears of Stellantis permanently leaving Brampton have been mounting for more than a year. The company sold 32 acres of the Brampton property at 2000 Williams Parkway in January, claiming the move was to streamline its operations and monetize its real estate portfolio. 

Then, in late April, Doug Ostermann, Chief Financial Officer of Stellantis, revealed during a conference call with analysts that the company would need to “recalibrate its North American investments” after seeing revenue drop by 14 percent in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2024; the loss was directly tied to trade-related uncertainty.

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