Stellantis sells Brampton Assembly Plant to defence contractor Roshel; Unifor calls it a betrayal

Stellantis has sold its Brampton Assembly Plant to defence contractor Roshel, a move Unifor calls a betrayal of autoworkers and a failure of Canada's auto strategy.

The company informed the union and announced the sale publicly on Nov. 9, Unifor said.

Union says commitments broken

Unifor says Stellantis went ahead with the sale while in violation of its collective agreement and in breach of commitments it made to the federal government. The union's position is that closing and selling the plant is a continuing breach of those commitments.

"Stellantis has betrayed our members with an underhanded deal to sell the plant and walk away from its commitments to our members," said Unifor national president Lana Payne. Allowing the sale, she said, "breaks the federal government's promise to protect autoworkers in the U.S. trade war."

Before the announcement, Unifor said, it was finalizing four-way talks with Stellantis and the federal and Ontario governments about the company's future production in Canada.

Payne said a plan to keep the plant making vehicles was possible "had the company been committed to finding it and governments applied every measure to prevent the sale." Beyond the jobs at the plant itself, she said, Canada will lose thousands more in its auto parts supply chain.

Auto jobs versus defence jobs

Vito Beato, president of Unifor Local 1285, which represents workers at the Brampton plant, rejected the argument that "some jobs are better than no jobs."

"The reality is that thousands of good-paying Canadian auto jobs are being sacrificed permanently in exchange for hundreds of hypothetical jobs that depend on military procurement contracts that haven't even been awarded yet," Beato said.

James Stewart, Unifor's master bargaining chair and president of Local 444, said the sale puts the rest of Stellantis's Canadian production in doubt. "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," he said.

Zoning fight ahead

In February, Brampton city council voted unanimously to amend its zoning bylaws to designate the plant site for automotive assembly and related auto manufacturing. Unifor is urging Mayor Patrick Brown and Premier Doug Ford to enforce that designation.

The union also noted the sale comes right after what it called a shift in the U.S. Congress that could open a path to resolving the tariff disputes threatening Canada's auto sector.

Unifor's release did not include a response from Stellantis or Roshel.

Source: Unifor, "Sale of Brampton Assembly Plant a betrayal by Stellantis," Nov. 9, 2026.