Prime Minister Mark Carney came under fire from opposition leaders on Wednesday after a report that his government took part in months of talks leading to Stellantis‘s sale of its idled Brampton, Ontario, assembly plant, a deal he had called “a betrayal” a day earlier.
“Yesterday Mark Carney said the Stellantis sale was a ‘betrayal.’ Today, we find out his government was in on it every step of the way. So is he the one that betrayed the workers & taxpayers?” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote on X.
Poilievre was reacting to a CTV News report, citing three sources with direct knowledge of the discussions, that the federal government was actively involved in the talks that led to the sale to armored-vehicle maker Roshel and did not stand in the way of the deal.
Stellantis announced the agreement on Monday.
A ‘Betrayal’ a Day Earlier
The report landed hours after Carney’s sharpest comments on the sale.
“The situation in the Brampton plant is unacceptable,” Carney said at a press conference in Montreal on Tuesday. “It violates the obligations that Stellantis has under several agreements, but to be more fundamental, it’s a betrayal of the workers as it is a betrayal of the obligations to Canada and by extension to all Canadians.”
“We will fully enforce our rights in protection of those workers and in protection of Canadian funds,” Carney added, without giving specifics.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said the government would “use the full force of the law to make sure we protect jobs but also bring justice to these workers.” Joly said her office had engaged with Stellantis and Unifor for more than a year without reaching a solution, and that the automaker “has decided to go ahead and violate its contract,” CBC Newsreported. “Patience has its limits,” she said.
Opposition Demands Answers
Other opposition lawmakers pressed Carney and Joly to explain the government’s role after the CTV report.
Michael Guglielmin, Conservative Member of Parliament for Vaughan-Woodbridge, wrote on X that “PM Carney and Minister Joly should explain what they said behind closed doors.” He added that “Brampton workers deserve the whole truth.”
Harb Gill, Conservative Member of Parliament for Windsor West, questioned what Ottawa’s dispute-resolution process with Stellantis, launched in November 2025, had achieved. “What was enforced? Was anything recovered? The government needs to show results at the end of the day,” Gill told radio station AM800.
Speaking outside the idled plant on Tuesday, before the report, Poilievre had called on Carney to fire Joly. “She’s been threatening lawsuits for years. She’s done nothing,” he said.
“The Liberal strategy has failed to save jobs from Stellantis to Stelco,” Poilievre added. “In both cases the Liberals promised they would get the jobs back.”
New Democratic Party Leader Avi Lewis, who co-hosted a town hall at Unifor Local 1285 the week before the sale, called it an “enraging betrayal by the company” in a post on X on Monday and turned his fire on Ottawa.
“Ottawa has promised again and again to protect the auto sector and its workers. Where the hell have they been for the whole last year?” he wrote.
Carney Defends Joly
Carney stood by his minister. Standing next to Joly in Montreal on Tuesday, he said she was doing “an exceptional job in very difficult circumstances.”
“The issue is not the exceptional work of Minister of Industry Joly and her colleagues, it is the behaviour of the company versus those workers,” he said.
Joly’s office told CTV News it could not comment on discussions held “under the seal of confidentiality.”
“The government heard many proposals,” spokesperson Mathis Denis said. “The government of Canada never advocated for a deal between Roshel and Stellantis. We remain unsatisfied with the plans we have seen but will not discuss what was exchanged in confidence.”
What CTV Reported
Two of the sources told CTV News there had been more than a dozen meetings between the government and the two companies in the last several months.
The government knew the terms of the proposed sale, the sources said, and one of them said Ottawa had initially opposed it when talks began. The sources said they were surprised by Ottawa’s public reaction given the scope of its private involvement.
A senior government official told the broadcaster that Stellantis had presented multiple proposals, none of which Ottawa endorsed. The official said the government had raised concerns at multiple levels, had not received a satisfactory response and noted that the 2022 funding agreement sets minimum employment expectations.
Roshel founder and Chief Executive Officer Roman Shimonov said on CTV‘s Power Play that he had no doubt the deal would close. “We prepared the plan. We shared it with the government,” he said.
The Union’s Doubts
Unifor, which represents the plant’s workers, had questioned the government’s role before the report.
“It’s really hard to believe this plant could have been sold without some green light from the federal government,” National President Lana Payne said on Monday, BNN Bloomberg reported.
Payne said that “allowing the sale to move forward is a critical failure of the national auto strategy and breaks the federal government’s promise to protect autoworkers in the U.S. trade war.”
“Some in government are hearing us, but just aren’t listening,” said Vito Beato, President of Unifor Local 1285, which represents the Brampton workers.
Stellantis workers voted 97.3% in October to authorize a strike. Joly will host a meeting in Toronto on Thursday with Unifor, Stellantis, federal officials and Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli.
Stellantis Offers to Repay
Roshel will acquire the plant and its equipment for an undisclosed amount, with the deal expected to close by the end of 2026 subject to conditions that include “applicable government and regulatory requirements,” Stellantis said in a release also filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
On Tuesday, the company said it had “offered to voluntarily return the government support received for Brampton Assembly’s original retooling plan,” adding that “confidentiality provisions” prevent it from disclosing further details. Three sources told CTV News the figure is C$24 million ($16.9 million).
The federal government committed up to C$529 million ($371.5 million) in May 2022 toward retooling Stellantis’ Windsor and Brampton plants, and had paid out C$222 million ($155.9 million) as of March 2025, without a breakdown by plant, CTV News reported. Ontario has not provided any funding for the Brampton retooling, CBC News reported.
The 2022 federal contract barred Stellantis from closing the Brampton plant before 2035 unless circumstances beyond its “reasonable control” made the facility “commercially unviable,” CBC News reported.
Ottawa already cut Stellantis’ annual tariff-free import quota for U.S.-built vehicles by 50% on October 23, 2025, citing its decision to cancel its production plans for Brampton.
Shimonov told BNN Bloomberg that Stellantis has agreed to lease back 25% of the plant, and two sources said the space could be used for other EV-related assembly. Between 700 and 1,000 laid-off Stellantis employees could return under Roshel, The Canadian Press reported, against about 2,200 still on layoff.
Three Years Idle
Brampton Assembly stopped building the Dodge Charger, Dodge Challenger and Chrysler 300 in December 2023 to retool for the next-generation Jeep Compass, which Stellantis moved to Belvidere, Illinois, in October 2025.
Joly ruled out Leapmotor kit assembly at the plant in April, and Stellantis told Unifor in August it was considering a salebefore signing a memorandum of understanding with Roshel in September.
Apart from Brampton, Stellantis employs more than 10,000 people in Canada, the company said.
