More than 2,200 auto workers in Brampton, Ont., have been on layoff for nearly three years. On Nov. 9, the company that laid them off sold the plant they were waiting to return to.
Stellantis sold the Brampton Assembly Plant to Roshel, a Brampton-based maker of armoured vehicles. Unifor, the union that represents the workers, says the company walked away from its commitments. Its national president, Lana Payne, said Stellantis “has betrayed our members with an underhanded deal to sell the plant and walk away from its commitments.” On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney used the same word, calling the plans “a betrayal” of the automaker’s obligations to Canada.
Brampton is home to one of the largest Black communities in the region. The 2021 census counted 85,310 Black residents, 13.12% of the city, and 62% of Peel Region’s Black population lives there. No public data says how many of the laid-off workers are Black, and that gap is itself a problem: when a plant of this size closes, nobody can say who is bearing the loss. What is clear is that a city with a large Black population has lost its biggest factory floor to a deal its union calls underhanded.
The timeline is short and ugly. Stellantis idled the plant in December 2023 to retool it for the Jeep Compass. In October 2025 it moved that production to Illinois. In September it signed a memorandum of understanding with Roshel. Last Friday it would not confirm or deny a sale at the bargaining table, and Unifor concluded the plant had been sold. Workers approved a strike mandate last month.
Carney blamed the move to Illinois on “the latest U.S. tariffs” and said the company needed “more trade certainty.” Industry Minister Mélanie Joly expressed extreme concern and pointed to the public money that kept Chrysler alive in the 2009 auto bailout. CBC reported that the federal funding contracts contained exceptions around Brampton, which raises the question of what Ottawa actually secured for that support.
Roshel’s chief executive, Roman Shimonov, called the deal “the best thing that can happen to this plant” and said he was surprised the government had not publicly supported it. Carney has said laid-off workers could apply for some of the 1,500 jobs at Stellantis’s Windsor plant.
James Stewart, who leads Unifor’s Stellantis bargaining and heads Local 444 in Windsor, said the stakes reach past Brampton: “If the company can tear up our collective agreement and walk away from Brampton then there are no guarantees for the rest of its production in Canada.”
A defence contractor may hire in Brampton eventually. But a factory that was supposed to bring back 2,200 union jobs is going to a buyer that has made no public hiring commitment, and the workers’ only protection is a contract the company is walking away from. Ottawa put public money behind Stellantis and should now enforce what it bought, and publish who it is leaving behind. Unifor’s strike mandate is the next deadline to watch.
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