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Industry Minister Mélanie Joly speaks to the media in Toronto on Thursday after discussions over the sale of the Stellantis Brampton assembly plant.Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press
The federal and Ontario governments are offering new funding and production options to Stellantis NV STLA-N to persuade the company not to sell its Brampton, Ont., assembly plant, just a day after Industry Minister Mélanie Joly threatened to sue the automaker to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies.
Ms. Joly said Friday the governments, along with the union representing workers at the plant, have put “an aggressive package” in front of Stellantis, adding the parties remain “in solution mode to prevent the sale” of the idled factory to defence contractor Roshel Inc.
That sale was announced Monday and is expected to close by the end of the year.
Ms. Joly and Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli spoke at an auto-sector funding announcement in Vaughan, Ont. They said they will present new scenarios, worked out with Unifor, to Stellantis global chief executive officer Antonio Filosa. That plan came out of a meeting on Thursday between the two governments, the union and Stellantis Canada CEO Trevor Longley.
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No date has been set for the meeting with Mr. Filosa.
Mr. Fedeli said a $2.5-billion federal-provincial auto fund would be “part of the solution, not all of it.” The fund, announced last month as part of an $8.7-billion plan to help tariff-hit industries, is meant to pay for automotive capital projects over two years.
In return, he said, the governments want Stellantis to “buy some time” for the idled plant.
“When you sell an auto plant, it’s gone, it’s not going to come back,” Mr. Fedeli said. “We have new funds that we can help keep a warm plant until we look for something that we can put in there.”
He pointed to General Motors’ plant in Oshawa, Ont., which stopped building vehicles in 2019. At the time, Unifor pressed GM to keep the facility running rather than sell it. The company later brought in Chevrolet Silverado production, and Mr. Fedeli said about 1,800 people now build the pickups there.
Along with the offer, Ottawa is still threatening to sue. On Thursday, it served Stellantis with a notice of default on a 2022 agreement. Under that deal, Ottawa committed up to $529-million to help retool the Brampton and Windsor, Ont., plants to build electric vehicles.
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Ms. Joly’s letter to Stellantis gave the company 30 days to fix the breaches, which include halting Jeep Compass production in Brampton, and failing to name a replacement vehicle. If the company continues with the assembly plant sale, Ms. Joly warned, it could face penalties, including repaying all or part of the funding it received, plus interest.
Stellantis said Thursday it intends to repay only $24-million it said it received for the Brampton retooling. Ms. Joly rejected that offer.
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Cars pass along the assembly line at the Stellantis plant in Brampton, July 21, 2023.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
“Documents are clear, contracts also are clear,” she said. “The Brampton facility of Stellantis is linked to the Windsor plant and the battery investment, and that’s why I continue to say Stellantis is on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Ottawa has leverage because Stellantis asked for public money to support its investment in Brampton, Windsor and the battery plant, she said, adding the government also wants to protect the roughly 10,000 jobs in Windsor.
Ontario’s share of the 2022 deal with Stellantis was roughly $500-million, including $132-million earmarked for Brampton. However, on Friday Mr. Fedeli said the province’s investment in Brampton was “zero. We’ve not advanced any funds to Brampton, period.”
He said the province has so far advanced $55-million in Windsor, where Stellantis “built the plant they said they’d build.”
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Unifor national president Lana Payne sounded less hopeful after Thursday’s meeting with federal and provincial officials and the company’s local head. She said she did not hear the governments commit to using their levers to reverse the sale.
“The sale has occurred, so we would have to reverse it, which is doubly difficult, obviously,” she told reporters.
Retooling at Brampton began in early 2024. Stellantis paused its plan to build the Compass there in February 2025, weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office and threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods. The company later moved Compass production to Illinois, and more than 2,000 Brampton workers were laid off.
With a report from The Canadian Press