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Prime Minister Mark Carney said automaker Stellantis shuttering its plant in Brampton, Ont., is a betrayal to the country and all Canadians.
“The situation in the Brampton plant is unacceptable,” Carney said in Montreal on Tuesday.
“It violates the obligations that Stellantis has under several agreements, but to be more fundamental, it’s a betrayal of the workers as it is a betrayal of the obligations to Canada and by extension to all Canadians.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre blames the Liberal government for failing to prevent the closure and called on Carney to fire Industry Minister Mélanie Joly for her handling of the file.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during a news conference on Tuesday near the Stellantis assembly plant. (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press)
“The Liberal strategy has failed to save jobs from Stellantis to Stelco,” Poilievre said outside the idled auto assembly plant in Brampton earlier on Tuesday. “In both cases the Liberals promised they would get the jobs back.”
“Today the Official Opposition is calling for the Liberal prime minister to fire his failed, costly, job-killing Liberal industry minister.”
Stelco is owned by Cleveland-Cliffs, the U.S. company that said in September it plans to lay off hundreds of Ontario steelworkers despite promising to keep the number of unionized workers at 2024 levels for three more years.
Canadian steel and autos are both subject tariffs enacted by U.S. President Donald Trump.
WATCH | Poilievre calls for Joly to be fired:
Poilievre calls for Joly to be fired: ‘She’s done nothing’
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for Industry Minister Mélanie Joly to be fired, calling out her handling of Ontario’s hard-hit steel and automotive sectors, and saying the Liberal strategy has failed to save jobs.
Standing next to Joly, Carney said his industry minister is doing “an exceptional job in very difficult circumstances,” and she will continue to “fight for these workers.”
“The issue is not the exceptional work of Minister of Industry Joly and her colleagues, it is the behaviour of the company versus those workers,” Carney said.
Joly said that her office has been engaging with Stellantis and Unifor, the private sector union representing the workers at the Brampton plant, for more than a year to try and come to a solution to no avail.
“Stellantis has decided to go ahead and violate its contract and so that is why we will … use the full force of the law to make sure that we protect jobs but also bring back justice to these workers,” she said.
WATCH | Carney calls planned Stellantis sale a ‘betrayal’:
Carney calls planned Stellantis sale a ‘betrayal’ of workers, defends Joly’s work
Prime Minister Mark Carney said the situation at Stellantis is ‘unacceptable’ as the assembly plant in Brampton, Ont., is set to be purchased by a Canadian armoured vehicle maker. ‘We will fully enforce our rights,’ in the protection of workers and Canadian funds, he said, without offering specifics.
In a deal announced by the Trudeau government in 2022, Ottawa said it would inject up to $529 million in Stellantis plants in Brampton and Windsor, Ont., to help them retool to increase production of electric and gas-powered vehicles.
The contract barred Stellantis from closing its assembly plant in Brampton before 2035 unless it was subject to circumstances beyond the automaker’s “reasonable control” that made the facility “commercially unviable.”
More than 2,000 workers were laid off from the Brampton plant when it halted operations in 2023 to refit the facility to produce the Jeep Compass.
But Stellantis paused the retooling plan in early 2025, announcing in October of that year that the Jeep Compass would be built at the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois instead.
The plant’s future in Brampton had been left in limbo until Monday, when Stellantis announced it was selling the facility to Canadian armoured vehicle maker Roshel Inc. in a deal that could see Stellantis lease some of the property back.
Feds gave $222M to Stellantis
In a news release, Roshel CEO Roman Shimonov said his company plans to convert the Brampton plant into “a new centre of excellence for advanced manufacturing.” But in an interview with CBC News Monday night, he did not commit to bringing back Stellantis workers.
“We’re not taking over responsibilities or obligations that Stellantis made in the past,” he told host Hanomansing Tonight.
The prime minister said his government intends to “fully enforce our rights in protection of those workers and protection of Canadian funds.”
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown told CBC News that he wants to see a unified Team Canada challenge to Trump’s attempts to destroy Canada’s auto sector.
“If we allow Stellantis to leave easily and ignore their legal obligations, this will not be the last auto plant that falls in Canada,” Brown said. “Really this is ground zero of protecting auto jobs.”
Joly will host a meeting of all stakeholders in Toronto on Thursday in an attempt to find a way forward for the laid off Stellantis workers.
WATCH | Industry minister says Stellantis violated its contract:
Stellantis has decided to ‘violate its contract,’ industry minister says
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly says she will bring together stakeholders to talk about Stellantis, which plans to sell an idled assembly plant to an armoured vehicle company. Joly, who Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wants to see fired, pledged to protect workers, saying ‘patience has its limits.’
Last December, CBC News confirmed that the federal government had given $222 million to the Canadian arm of Stellantis between 2023 and 2025. CBC News asked the federal government for the most recent total but has yet to receive a response.
Stellantis issued a statement on Tuesday saying it would voluntarily pay the subsidies back.
“We recognize that Canadians expect accountability for public funding, and that is why Stellantis has offered to voluntarily return the government support received for Brampton Assembly’s original retooling plan,” the company said.
It added that “confidentiality provisions” prevent it from disclosing further details.
No Ontario money went to Brampton: Ford
That 2022 deal also saw Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government pledge to support the plants with an investment of up to $513 million.
CBC News confirmed on Tuesday that Ontario has not provided the company with any funding for its Brampton retooling initiative because it didn’t meet conditions related to job creation and project milestones.
The company did, however, get $55 million for the Windsor plant from the Ford government.