I've been clear uh we want a new model uh from Stalantis uh at the Stalantis plant and we'll put maximum pressure get what money back to make that happen and if they don't we'll get our money back. Which agreement? Well, Sandy Industry Minister Melanie Jolie says today's action is based on the belief that automaker Stalantis did violate the billion dollar contract signed with the federal government.
If you make promises and then walk away, you will be held accountable. Can Ottawa actually get it back? The plant has been sitting idle since 2023, but the automaker began retooling it in 2024 to produce the Jeep Compass.
Last year, Stellantis paused that plan and moved production to a factory in Illinois because of US President Donald Trump. Unifor is holding a news conference tomorrow morning in Toronto to update the media and their members about the status of labor talks which broke down last Friday. At issue is what to do with Bmpton assembly.
Stantis wants to sell it to an armored truck maker Rochelle. The union says that's not acceptable and it has become a central stumbling block in their overall negotiations. The buyer is not another car maker.
Roshial builds armored vehicles and it wants the plant for defense work. Uh it's really bad faith acting. This is a company that's made a commitment to product in that plant and product in that plant in automotive means 500 to a,000 cars a day.
That plant at its peak was doing 340,000 cars a year. It's got cars that it needs to assign for the 2029 and 2030 model year. The uh Chrysler Arrow being one of them.
So they can put a product there and uh you know we wish Rashelle well I think it's a very good Canadian story but they don't need 2 million square feet in a place that could anchor and has anchored 3,000 jobs in the plant and 9 to 12,000 jobs with suppliers around the plant. Uh this is uh and of course on a Friday on the news cycle hoping that um that uh none of us are going to notice. All we noticed uh so did the union and so did jobs inside and up to 12,000 around it.
So what exactly does the contract promise? Before being questioned by a parliamentary committee, the industry minister said Ottawa is going after the car maker. We'll start the 30-day period of the formal dispute resolution process in order to bring back production at the Stalantis Bmpton facility.
In October, Stalantis announced it was moving production of its Jeep Compass from its Bmpton, Ontario plant to Illinois. In response, the government capped how many vehicles Stalantis NGM can import tariff-free into Canada. But there is a thin spot in this file, and a committee found it.
In a sometimes combative exchange, conservative members of the parliamentary committee demanded to know if the contract with Stalantis spelled out job commitments in Bmpton. The documents related to the building of the battery plant in Windsor obtained by CTV News clearly state Nextstar Energy and Stalantis committed to creating and maintaining 2500 jobs at that plant. The contract for the Bmpton plant has not been released.
She could have been very clear if her government made a 3,000 job commitment for Bmpton or a broader Canadian footprint agreement. She was not clear on that. That tells me there isn't one.
Ottawa says the two plants and the two contracts are linked. The Bmpton one is still not public. So what is going on at Stalantis Bmpton is the fact that the company decided to end production and in that sense that was completely unacceptable.
I've been clear with the company and we will get our money back unless they bring back production. And there are three conditions to bring back conditions for the federal government on our side. First, labor standards conditions for workers need to be uh good and actually the same they were and even better first.
Second, it needs to support the local supply chain. We can't bring cars in a kit to Canada. Why?
Because one of the big parts of our auto industry is actually linked to the fact that we have a big auto parts sector. 200,000 workers and we have the three biggest companies in the world in auto uh parts parts Linear, Martinia and Magna. And so we'll support these uh companies, we'll support these workers and finally the software needs to be secure.
It is fundamental as we're dealing within North America with uh rules that are extremely important linked to those three conditions are the real test for any new owner of that plant. These members have been living a nightmare out of work for almost 3 years now. For them, the impact of tariffs isn't theoretical.
It means uncertainty for their jobs, their ability to provide for their families, and of course, the welfare of the community. I can tell you in these negotiations and on the economics, we expect Stellis to match the pattern settlement negotiated with Ford Motor Company and then followed by General Motors. There is a lot at stake in these talks.
We are bargaining first and foremost for our members, but we also understand the gravity of the situation. In many ways, we are bargaining for the future of the Canadian auto industry. That is a heavy responsibility and one we don't take lightly.
And the clock on those talks runs out this weekend. Uniform National President Lana Payne made her point clear in a letter to industry minister Melanie Jolie, which reads in part, "The idea Canada would concede defeat on one of its remaining vehicle assembly plants is unfathomable. That it would agree to allow a global original equipment manufacturer to walk away from its commitment to the plant is incomprehensible.
" Tonight, the union has reached out to the federal government to find out if the feds were aware of the sale and if the government is part of that agreement. As you know, Stalantis and the feds have been working to resolve a dispute over the loss of Jeep Compass Manufacturing in Bmpton assembly. The union believes the Rochelle deal should not be considered a replacement product for the Compass, nor does it get Stalantis off the hook for its agreements with the government.
which brings it back to one line. We shouldn't be offering any concessions to the United States right now. The reality is uh they have the US has imposed tariffs on Canada.
We have retaliated by having counter uh tariffs in the idle sector specifically and by doing that we created leverage for ourselves in these discussions with the US right now. The reality is the only way we work through that is to show the US we actually have a common problem here. Canada is not the problem.
In to say that we are disappointed would be an understatement. This is a gut punch to our union and to our members most importantly to our members the workers who have given everything to this plant. In a statement to Global News, Stalanta says it is preparing to enter the collective bargaining process and has nothing to announce at this time, but that it is focused on finding a solution for the Bmpton plant.
The money is not the story by itself. Ottawa pledged up to uh $529 million, paid about $222 million, then declared the company in violation, and opened a dispute process that is still running. Getting some of that back would be a refund, not a plant.
As I see it, the minister's own three conditions are the better test, and they are worth repeating. Good labor standards, real local supply chain work, which is why she said Canada cannot just um assemble cars that arrive as kits, and secure software. Any buyer, including a defense manufacturer, can be measured against those three lines.
The part I would not accept quietly is the paperwork. The Windsor agreement put a jobs number in writing. The Bmpton contract has still not been published and that is a choice someone made.
If the commitment was never written down, then the leverage was never as strong as the language. In the coming days, the contract deadline passes and the union could be in a legal strike position. So, watch for two things.
Whether any new owner is held to those three conditions and whether the Bmpton agreement is finally released. If Ottawa will not publish it, what exactly are Canadians being asked to trust? I've been clear uh we want a new model uh from Stalantis uh at the Stalantis plant and we'll put maximum pressure get what money back to make that happen and if they don't we'll get our money back.
Which agreement? Well, Sandy Industry Minister Melanie Jolie says today's action is based on the belief that automaker Stalantis did violate the billion dollar contract signed with the federal government. If you make promises and then walk away, you will be held accountable.
Can Ottawa actually get it back? The plant has been sitting idle since 2023, but the automaker began retooling it in 2024 to produce the Jeep Compass. Last year, Stellantis paused that plan and moved production to a factory in Illinois because of US President Donald Trump.
Unifor is holding a news conference tomorrow morning in Toronto to update the media and their members about the status of labor talks which broke down last Friday. At issue is what to do with Bmpton assembly. Stantis wants to sell it to an armored truck maker Rochelle.
The union says that's not acceptable and it has become a central stumbling block in their overall negotiations. The buyer is not another car maker. Roshial builds armored vehicles and it wants the plant for defense work.
Uh it's really bad faith acting. This is a company that's made a commitment to product in that plant and product in that plant in automotive means 500 to a,000 cars a day. That plant at its peak was doing 340,000 cars a year.
It's got cars that it needs to assign for the 2029 and 2030 model year. The uh Chrysler Arrow being one of them. So they can put a product there and uh you know we wish Rashelle well I think it's a very good Canadian story but they don't need 2 million square feet in a place that could anchor and has anchored 3,000 jobs in the plant and 9 to 12,000 jobs with suppliers around the plant.
Uh this is uh and of course on a Friday on the news cycle hoping that um that uh none of us are going to notice. All we noticed uh so did the union and so did jobs inside and up to 12,000 around it. So what exactly does the contract promise?
Before being questioned by a parliamentary committee, the industry minister said Ottawa is going after the car maker. We'll start the 30-day period of the formal dispute resolution process in order to bring back production at the Stalantis Bmpton facility. In October, Stalantis announced it was moving production of its Jeep Compass from its Bmpton, Ontario plant to Illinois.
In response, the government capped how many vehicles Stalantis NGM can import tariff-free into Canada. But there is a thin spot in this file, and a committee found it. In a sometimes combative exchange, conservative members of the parliamentary committee demanded to know if the contract with Stalantis spelled out job commitments in Bmpton.
The documents related to the building of the battery plant in Windsor obtained by CTV News clearly state Nextstar Energy and Stalantis committed to creating and maintaining 2500 jobs at that plant. The contract for the Bmpton plant has not been released. She could have been very clear if her government made a 3,000 job commitment for Bmpton or a broader Canadian footprint agreement.
She was not clear on that. That tells me there isn't one. Ottawa says the two plants and the two contracts are linked.
The Bmpton one is still not public. So what is going on at Stalantis Bmpton is the fact that the company decided to end production and in that sense that was completely unacceptable. I've been clear with the company and we will get our money back unless they bring back production.
And there are three conditions to bring back conditions for the federal government on our side. First, labor standards conditions for workers need to be uh good and actually the same they were and even better first. Second, it needs to support the local supply chain.
We can't bring cars in a kit to Canada. Why? Because one of the big parts of our auto industry is actually linked to the fact that we have a big auto parts sector.
200,000 workers and we have the three biggest companies in the world in auto uh parts parts Linear, Martinia and Magna. And so we'll support these uh companies, we'll support these workers and finally the software needs to be secure. It is fundamental as we're dealing within North America with uh rules that are extremely important linked to those three conditions are the real test for any new owner of that plant.
These members have been living a nightmare out of work for almost 3 years now. For them, the impact of tariffs isn't theoretical. It means uncertainty for their jobs, their ability to provide for their families, and of course, the welfare of the community.
I can tell you in these negotiations and on the economics, we expect Stellis to match the pattern settlement negotiated with Ford Motor Company and then followed by General Motors. There is a lot at stake in these talks. We are bargaining first and foremost for our members, but we also understand the gravity of the situation.
In many ways, we are bargaining for the future of the Canadian auto industry. That is a heavy responsibility and one we don't take lightly. And the clock on those talks runs out this weekend.
Uniform National President Lana Payne made her point clear in a letter to industry minister Melanie Jolie, which reads in part, "The idea Canada would concede defeat on one of its remaining vehicle assembly plants is unfathomable. That it would agree to allow a global original equipment manufacturer to walk away from its commitment to the plant is incomprehensible. " Tonight, the union has reached out to the federal government to find out if the feds were aware of the sale and if the government is part of that agreement.
As you know, Stalantis and the feds have been working to resolve a dispute over the loss of Jeep Compass Manufacturing in Bmpton assembly. The union believes the Rochelle deal should not be considered a replacement product for the Compass, nor does it get Stalantis off the hook for its agreements with the government. which brings it back to one line.
We shouldn't be offering any concessions to the United States right now. The reality is uh they have the US has imposed tariffs on Canada. We have retaliated by having counter uh tariffs in the idle sector specifically and by doing that we created leverage for ourselves in these discussions with the US right now.
The reality is the only way we work through that is to show the US we actually have a common problem here. Canada is not the problem. In to say that we are disappointed would be an understatement.
This is a gut punch to our union and to our members most importantly to our members the workers who have given everything to this plant. In a statement to Global News, Stalanta says it is preparing to enter the collective bargaining process and has nothing to announce at this time, but that it is focused on finding a solution for the Bmpton plant. The money is not the story by itself.
Ottawa pledged up to uh $529 million, paid about $222 million, then declared the company in violation, and opened a dispute process that is still running. Getting some of that back would be a refund, not a plant. As I see it, the minister's own three conditions are the better test, and they are worth repeating.
Good labor standards, real local supply chain work, which is why she said Canada cannot just um assemble cars that arrive as kits, and secure software. Any buyer, including a defense manufacturer, can be measured against those three lines. The part I would not accept quietly is the paperwork.
The Windsor agreement put a jobs number in writing. The Bmpton contract has still not been published and that is a choice someone made. If the commitment was never written down, then the leverage was never as strong as the language.
In the coming days, the contract deadline passes and the union could be in a legal strike position. So, watch for two things. Whether any new owner is held to those three conditions and whether the Bmpton agreement is finally released.
If Ottawa will not publish it, what exactly are Canadians being asked to trust?
