Stellantis prepared to repay federal and regional governments

At a press conference in Montreal on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called Stellantis’s sale of its Toronto-area factory in Brampton to Canadian armored-vehicle maker Roshel “unacceptable.” Carney said the transaction violated obligations Stellantis made to the government in exchange for taxpayer financing and to Canadian employees, and that he was prepared to use available legal and policy levers to protect roughly 2,000 affected workers.

“We will fully enforce our rights in protection of those workers and the protection of Canadian funds,” Carney said.

Stellantis said Monday that it had concluded the sale of the Brampton factory, with terms including the price undisclosed. The company said it had been in talks with Roshel for months and that resumption of auto manufacturing at Brampton was financially unfeasible.

A Stellantis spokeswoman said Tuesday that the company was prepared to pay back both the federal and regional governments for financial support. “We recognize that Canadians expect accountability for public funding,” the spokeswoman said.

Federal accounting records suggest that officials forwarded more than 220 million Canadian dollars ($155 million) related to the retooling of Stellantis factories in Brampton and Windsor, Ontario.

The Brampton plant has been idle since 2024 after Stellantis retooled the factory to prepare for Jeep Compass production. Stellantis changed course last year amid heavy U.S. tariffs on foreign vehicles and said Jeep Compass production would shift to a factory in Illinois.

Unifor, the union representing Canadian auto workers, condemned the sale. Unifor President Lana Payne said allowing the sale to proceed would mark “a critical failure” of the government’s industrial strategy and “breaks Ottawa’s promise to protect auto workers in the U.S. trade war.”

Carney said officials had arranged a meeting of government officials, Stellantis executives and Unifor’s leadership to discuss next steps to aid affected employees.

Roshel previously said it was prepared to bring on some of those workers to its new defense-equipment plant.