Ottawa, Ontario pitch ‘aggressive package’ to Stellantis

The federal and Ontario governments say they have put an “aggressive package” of support to Stellantis in a bid to stop the sale of its idled Brampton, Ont., assembly plant, a day after Ottawa served the automaker a notice of default.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Friday that Ottawa is “still in solution mode to prevent the sale” of the plant to Roshel, working with Ontario and Unifor. She said the next step is to present new scenarios to Stellantis global CEO Antonio Filosa, according to The Canadian Press and CBC News.

Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli said part of the $2.5 billion earmarked for the auto sector under the $8.7-billion federal-provincial support package announced in October could pay for the union’s proposals. He said the goal is to “keep the plant warm” until new products can be assigned to Brampton.

“When you sell an auto plant, it’s gone. It’s not going to come back,” Fedeli said. He compared the situation to General Motors’ 2019 shutdown of vehicle production in Oshawa, Ont., where the Chevrolet Silverado later went into production and about 1,800 people now work.

Unifor national president Lana Payne sounded less hopeful Thursday evening after a four-way meeting with the company and both governments. “The plant has been sold,” she said, adding that reversing the deal would be “doubly difficult.”

Stellantis announced on Monday that it is selling the plant to Canadian armoured-vehicle maker Roshel Inc., with the deal expected to close before the end of the year. Roshel said Friday it wants to build a “centre of excellence for advanced automotive and defence manufacturing” there, with potential for more than 2,000 jobs, and that laid-off workers would get first priority when hiring begins. Our earlier story on the sale is here.

Joly’s notice of default, served Thursday and reported in our earlier story, gives Stellantis 30 days to show it will correct breaches of the 2022 funding agreement, under which Ottawa committed up to $529 million to retool the Brampton and Windsor plants. Stellantis has said it will repay only $24 million in federal support tied to the Brampton retooling. Joly said the Brampton facility is linked to the Windsor plant and battery investments, and that the company “is on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.”

CBC News reported that three industry sources said they were surprised to hear Joly and Fedeli describe an aggressive package, saying Stellantis has been clear for a year about what it needs to keep the plant open. Joly’s office said it “presented various options” to the company and the union, and that “further options” would be put to Filosa. Neither government has said what the package contains or when the meeting with Filosa will take place.

Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, told CBC News that under Stellantis’s product plan, four vehicles for the 2029 model year have not yet been assigned to a plant. “Let’s stop the sale, keep the plant warm and then work on landing those products here,” he said.

More than 2,000 workers at the Brampton plant have been out of work since Stellantis halted operations to begin retooling for the Jeep Compass. It paused that work in February 2025 and later moved Compass production to Illinois. Carney has also said the sale is only a partial fix.

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Sources: The Canadian Press, CBC News.