Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Ottawa has served a formal notice alleging Stellantis defaulted on an agreement tied to previous federal funding, following the automaker’s announcement that it would sell the Brampton, Ont., plant to Canadian defence company Roshel.
In the Nov. 12 letter, Joly alleged that Stellantis had breached conditions of a 2022 federal funding agreement by abandoning plans to manufacture the Jeep Compass in Brampton, failing to select a replacement vehicle for production, and leaving the plant idle.
The minister added that Stellantis now has 30 days to show it will “correct these conditions” before the federal government formally declares the company in default. Such a declaration could lead to cancellation of the funding agreement and require Stellantis to repay the federal funding it received, with interest.
Joly also accused Stellantis of failing to make a real effort to address concerns brought forward by Ottawa after the automaker announced the Jeep Compass would no longer be manufactured in Brampton.
She said Stellantis’ decision to sell the plant to Roshel, formally announced Nov. 9 and expected to close before year’s end, indicates that “Stellantis is no longer diligently working in good faith” to meet its commitments for initially receiving the government funding. She said the sale could constitute additional breaches of the agreement.
“At no point have I or my office indicated support for a sale to Roshel, nor given any indication that such sale would cure Stellantis’ existing breaches of the agreement,” Joly wrote to Stellantis Canada CEO Trevor Longley.
“This is a clear breach of the agreement, and you were informed that I viewed any sale as a continuation of the existing breaches.”
Joly sent the letter following a meeting in Toronto the same day involving representatives of Stellantis, the federal and Ontario governments, and Unifor, which represents more than 9,000 Stellantis workers in Canada.
Stellantis Funding
In 2022, Ottawa announced up to $529 million in funding for Stellantis to retool its Brampton and Windsor plants to produce electric and hybrid vehicles.
In addition to the federal funding, Ontario committed $513 million towards the goal.
Preparations to retool the Brampton facility began in early 2024. However, Stellantis suspended plans to manufacture the Jeep Compass there in February 2025 amid uncertainty over U.S. trade policy.
In October 2025 the automaker said it would shift planned production of the Jeep Compass to Illinois as part of a plan to expand U.S. manufacturing. The decision left more than 2,000 Brampton employees laid off and the plant idle, with no confirmed reopening date.
The Brampton plant remains idle pending its sale. The Windsor assembly plant remains part of Stellantis’ Canadian manufacturing operations, although production has been suspended for several weeks amid tariffs and reduced consumer demand.
‘Betrayal’
Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking on the sidelines of the European Political Community Summit in Ireland, said federal officials had taken part in discussions surrounding Stellantis’ proposed sale to Roshel before the agreement was reached.
“Being informed or being aware of some aspects is not the same as Stellantis providing a global solution for those workers at the plant, which is their obligation,” Carney told reporters. He described the sale to Roshel as only a “partial solution” and accused Stellantis of betraying its workers.
“The betrayal is not fulfilling all the obligations for all of the workers. That’s the responsibility of Stellantis,” the prime minister said.
“That’s the responsibility they made multiple times, including in the battery deal that they signed with the government. We will pursue all of this. A partial solution is a step. It is not a global solution. That is the betrayal.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized Ottawa’s handling of the situation, saying that if the government knew about the deal with Roshel ahead of time it should have secured employment guarantees for displaced workers.
“The Liberals have given hundreds of millions of dollars from Canadian taxpayers to this multinational corporation, supposedly to create and protect jobs. Please tell me there was a job guarantee in exchange for all those tax dollars,” Poilievre told reporters on Nov. 12.
“If there wasn’t such a guarantee, then that is negligence on a mass scale by this Liberal government. So it’s time for Mark Carney to tell us, ‘Was there a job guarantee that we got in exchange for all the tax dollars that came out of your pocket?’ And if not, who’s going to be fired for this reckless economic negligence?”
Brampton-based Roshel, which manufactures military and security vehicles, has said it intends to hire some former Stellantis employees. Roshel CEO Roman Shimonov has also said the company intends to lease roughly 25 percent of the facility back to Stellantis so it can continue automotive-related manufacturing.
Stellantis has indicated that it’s prepared to reimburse Ottawa for the funding it received under its original plans to retool the Brampton plant.
“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,” company spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin said in a statement. She declined to say when the money would be repaid, citing confidentiality requirements.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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