Ottawa serves Stellantis notice of default on funding agreement after Roshel deal

TORONTO — Ottawa has served Stellantis with a notice of default on its federal funding agreement after the automaker signed a deal to sell its Brampton, Ont. assembly plant to defence contractor Roshel.

A letter from Industry Minister Mélanie Joly on Thursday said Stellantis breached a 2022 funding agreement by halting Jeep Compass production at the plant, failing or refusing to identify a replacement vehicle, not maintaining any production at the facility, and closing the plant.

Joly’s letter said Stellantis has 30 days to demonstrate it will “correct these conditions” or she will declare that the company is in default of its obligations. She warned Stellantis could face penalties, including termination of the federal funding deal and a requirement for it to repay all or part of the funding it has received, plus interest.

The minister said the transaction between Stellantis and Roshel shows “Stellantis is no longer diligently working in good faith” to resolve the federal government’s concerns since the automaker revealed a year ago it would not manufacture its Jeep Compass electric vehicle at the Brampton plant.

Joly said she may supplement the notice of default with further breaches related to Stellantis’ sale of the plant to Roshel, which was announced Monday and is expected to close by the end of this year.

“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,” said the letter addressed to Stellantis Canada chairman, president and 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.”

In 2022, the federal government committed up to $529 million to help Stellantis retool its Brampton and Windsor facilities to produce electrified vehicles, while the Ontario government committed $513 million in provincial support.

That process began at the Brampton plant in early 2024, however the automaker paused its plan to produce the Jeep Compass there in February 2025 — one month after President Donald Trump re-took office and began issuing tariffs on imports from Canada and other countries.

Stellantis later announced it was moving Jeep Compass production to Illinois, leaving more than 2,000 workers laid off and the Brampton plant idled indefinitely.

The letter comes following a key meeting held Thursday in Toronto between Joly, Stellantis, the union representing its more than 9,000 workers across Canada, and representatives of the Ontario government.

Earlier Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed media reports that the federal government played an active role in discussions between Stellantis and Roshel before they inked their agreement.

“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 during a visit to Ireland, where he’s meeting with European leaders.

He described the deal with Roshel as a “partial solution” for the plant’s workers.

“The betrayal is not fulfilling all the obligations for all of the workers. That’s the responsibility of Stellantis,” Carney 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.”

But Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said that if the federal government knew in advance about the Brampton plant sale, it should have stepped in to ensure there were job guarantees associated with the transaction.

“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,” he said Thursday in Calgary.

“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?”

Roshel CEO Roman Shimonov has said his Brampton-based company is willing to hire back some of the Stellantis employees who were laid off from the plant when it halted operations in 2023. The defence company also plans to lease around one-quarter of the site’s space back to Stellantis for automotive work.

Stellantis spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin said the company would repay public funds it has received, but declined to comment on the amount, citing confidentiality provisions.

“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,” Gosselin said in a statement this week.

Collective bargaining negotiations between Stellantis and Unifor broke down in September after the automaker signed a memorandum of understanding with Roshel to target a sale of the facility.

Unifor national president Lana Payne has called the sale a “worst-case scenario.”

“Stellantis has betrayed our members with an underhanded deal to sell the plant and walk away from its commitments to these workers,” she said Monday.

“Allowing the sale to move forward is a critical failure of our national auto strategy and breaks the federal government’s promise to protect autoworkers from this U.S. trade war.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2026.

— With files from Dylan Robertson in Dublin, Ireland.

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press