Brampton’s sprawling auto plant was supposed to represent the next chapter of Canadian vehicle manufacturing. Instead, thousands of workers are waiting for clarity while Stellantis argues that changing trade and market conditions have undermined the case for restarting automotive production there. The uncertainty has intensified as U.S. tariffs reshape the economics of shipping Canadian-built vehicles into their largest export market.
Now the plant is attracting attention from somewhere few would have expected when its retooling began: Chinese manufacturers. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown says BYD and Stellantis partner Leapmotor have made inquiries connected to the facility, even as Stellantis pursues a more advanced potential sale to Canadian defence manufacturer Roshel. The result is a dispute involving tariffs, union negotiations, taxpayer funding and a much larger question about Canada’s place in the North American auto industry.
Brampton Went From a Major EV Investment to an Idled Factory
The uncertainty surrounding Brampton is striking because governments and Stellantis had previously presented the facility as an important part of Canada’s electric-vehicle transition. In 2022, Stellantis announced plans to modernize its Windsor and Brampton operations as part of a multibillion-dollar Canadian investment. Brampton was supposed to receive a flexible assembly line capable of building electric and hybrid vehicles, while the federal government committed up to $529 million toward Stellantis investments and Ontario announced support of up to $513 million across the broader projects. At the time, Brampton officials estimated that the assembly operation supported roughly 3,000 direct manufacturing jobs. Vehicle production eventually stopped in late 2023 as preparations began for the plant’s next generation of products.
The next-generation Jeep Compass was expected to provide that future. Retooling proceeded before Stellantis paused work in February 2025, and later in 2025 the automaker announced that future Compass production would instead go to its Belvidere operation in Illinois. Unifor says approximately 2,200 Brampton members remain on indefinite layoff. Stellantis Canada chief executive Trevor Longley told employees this September that the company had considered different possibilities for restoring vehicle production, but concluded that none offered a sustainable long-term business case. He cited unpredictable trade policy alongside regulatory requirements, market conditions and vehicle-affordability pressures. That distinction is important: tariffs are a major part of the story, but Stellantis itself has not described them as the plant’s only problem.
U.S. Tariffs Changed the Economics of Building Cars in Canada
The tariff pressure hits Canadian assembly plants especially hard because their business model was built around an integrated North American market rather than Canadian demand alone. President Donald Trump imposed a 25 per cent Section 232 tariff on imported automobiles beginning April 3, 2025. Vehicles qualifying under CUSMA can have that tariff calculated on their non-U.S. content rather than automatically on the vehicle’s entire value, but that still creates a cost disadvantage for Canadian assembly compared with final production inside the United States. The administration has also created incentives specifically favouring U.S.-assembled vehicles and has continued adjusting tariff measures affecting Canadian trade.
Statistics Canada shows why that matters so much. More than 93 per cent of Canadian motor-vehicle exports went to the United States in 2025, and the agency estimates that U.S. demand accounted for 76.4 per cent of output and payroll employment in Canada’s automobile and light-duty vehicle manufacturing industry in 2024. Around 27,000 Canadian auto-assembly jobs were associated with American demand that year. This means an automaker deciding whether to place a future model in Ontario or Illinois is not simply comparing wages and factory productivity. It also has to calculate the cost and uncertainty associated with repeatedly moving vehicles and components across a border where tariff rules have become substantially more complicated. For a plant such as Brampton, losing straightforward access to the U.S. market changes the investment equation dramatically.
Stellantis Is Now Pursuing a Very Different Future for the Site
By August, the discussion had shifted from finding another Stellantis vehicle for Brampton to whether Stellantis would remain the site’s owner at all. Unifor says the company informed the union on August 12 that it was seriously considering closing and selling Brampton Assembly. In September, Stellantis confirmed that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Brampton-based armoured-vehicle manufacturer Roshel concerning a potential transaction. Reuters reported that Stellantis views Roshel as a possible route to restoring sustainable activity at the property. No completed sale has been announced, meaning the plant’s ownership has not yet formally changed.
For Unifor, however, manufacturing something at the property is not necessarily equivalent to restoring the auto plant. The union argues that a large-volume vehicle assembly operation supports an extensive supplier network and economic footprint that defence manufacturing may not replicate. That disagreement helped push negotiations covering more than 9,000 Stellantis employees in Canada to an impasse. The existing collective agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. on September 20, although Unifor has clarified that workers will not automatically enter a legal strike position when the contract expires because the provincially required conciliation process has not yet finished. Strike action remains a possibility later if negotiations fail. Meanwhile, Stellantis has said Roshel is prepared to discuss employment opportunities for affected workers if a transaction proceeds.
Ottawa Is Warning Stellantis That Taxpayer Money Comes With Conditions
The federal government is making clear that selling the factory would not automatically erase commitments connected with earlier public investment. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said on September 18 that Brampton needs to reopen with a new automotive product and warned that Ottawa would seek repayment if the conditions attached to government support are not fulfilled. Earlier federal briefing material said Stellantis had agreed to maintain its Canadian manufacturing footprint, including Brampton, in return for financial assistance and stated that failure to meet legally binding commitments could constitute a default under government agreements.
That creates an unusual three-way problem. Stellantis says its reviews have not produced a financially sustainable case for continuing automotive production at the site. Unifor wants Ottawa to prevent the plant from permanently leaving the auto sector. The federal government, meanwhile, has an interest in protecting both employment and the public money attached to the original investment. Joly has said the government did not broker the Stellantis-Roshel discussions. Brampton City Council has also tried to influence the outcome from the municipal level: in February it unanimously moved to strengthen planning protections intended to preserve the Williams Parkway property for automotive assembly and related manufacturing. The factory has therefore become more than a corporate real-estate decision. Its future is now tied to labour agreements, industrial policy, municipal land-use planning and government funding conditions.
Chinese Automakers Really Are Interested — but the Details Matter
Brown’s comments about Chinese companies have added another dimension to the dispute. He told Bloomberg that BYD approached him roughly six months before the August 31 report to discuss using the Brampton facility to manufacture buses. Brown also said there had been an inquiry from Leapmotor International, as well as interest from an unnamed Italian automaker. Those approaches should not be confused with firm acquisition agreements. Public reporting has not established that BYD negotiated a purchase directly with Stellantis, and BYD’s reported discussion with the mayor concerned buses rather than passenger cars. Roshel’s memorandum with Stellantis is currently much more concrete than the Chinese inquiries Brown has described.
Leapmotor presents a particularly interesting possibility because it already has deep ties to Stellantis. Stellantis owns roughly 21 per cent of Zhejiang Leapmotor and controls 51 per cent of their Leapmotor International joint venture, which has rights to sell and manufacture Leapmotor products outside Greater China. Reuters reported in April that the companies were discussing potential Canadian EV manufacturing, with Brampton identified in reporting as a possible location, although no final decision followed. Canada has also changed its broader relationship with Chinese EVs. The federal government repealed its 100 per cent surtax on Chinese EVs effective March 1, 2026 and replaced it with an initial annual quota of 49,000 vehicles subject to the normal 6.1 per cent tariff. That does not guarantee Chinese production in Brampton, but it means the commercial and political environment surrounding Chinese automakers in Canada is markedly different from a year earlier.
Brampton Has Become a Test of Canada’s Auto Strategy
For workers, the debate can feel less abstract than the arguments over trade rules and industrial strategy suggest. Approximately 2,200 Unifor members tied to Brampton Assembly remain on indefinite layoff, according to the union. Many had expected the shutdown to be temporary while the plant was converted for new production. Instead, nearly three years after the last vehicles rolled through the assembly operation, they are watching Stellantis discuss selling the property while governments debate how strongly to enforce earlier commitments. Unifor and Stellantis have at least agreed to extend existing income-security provisions for laid-off Local 1285 members until either the parties reach a legal strike or lockout position or a new collective agreement takes effect.
The larger stakes extend well beyond one factory. Statistics Canada estimates that three-quarters of Canadian auto-assembly employment ultimately depends on U.S. demand, showing how vulnerable the industry is when cross-border policy changes. At the same time, Brampton now has possible interest from companies tied to China, a Canadian defence manufacturer seeking additional capacity and a city government explicitly trying to preserve industrial employment. Brown has argued that if the traditional Canada-U.S. automotive partnership becomes harder to sustain, Canadian communities will have to consider other global sources of investment. Whether any of those alternatives can reproduce the scale, supplier activity and wages associated with traditional mass-market auto assembly remains unresolved. For Brampton’s workers, that is the central question: not simply whether the huge factory operates again, but what kind of manufacturing future ultimately replaces the one they were promised.
