Stellantis may close a Canadian plant that has not built a car since 2023
A factory in limbo since 2023 may not get a reprieve after all
For nearly three years, workers at Stellantis's Brampton plant in Ontario have been waiting for their factory to reopen. This week the news went the other way. Stellantis has told the union Unifor that it is seriously considering closing or selling the site, a plant that has not built a single car since late 2023, and that has become a stark example of how trade policy is reshaping where vehicles get made.
How Brampton got here
The Brampton plant, a former AMC facility, last built cars in late 2023, when it wound down production of the Chrysler 300 and the Dodge Charger and Challenger. It was then idled to be retooled for the next Jeep Compass, including an electric version. That work was paused in February 2025, and in October 2025 Stellantis confirmed the Compass would instead be built in the United States, leaving Brampton idle with no product to make. Its roughly 2,200 Unifor Local 1285 members have been on layoff throughout, supported by income security worth about 70 percent of their pay.
What Stellantis and the union are saying
Stellantis informed Unifor of the closure-or-sale consideration in mid-August, and says its priority is finding a sustainable manufacturing solution for the site. No formal closure notice has been issued, and under the collective agreement the company must give at least 12 months' notice of any closure or sale. Unifor is not accepting the premise: national president Lana Payne called the news a gut punch, and Local 1285 president Vito Beato was blunt, saying closure is not an option. The union also argues that moving Compass production breached both the labour agreement and the commitments tied to significant federal and provincial funding.
The tariff shadow
Unifor is clear about what it sees as the underlying cause: the auto tariffs imposed by the US administration, which make building cars in Canada for the American market far less attractive than building them south of the border. The Brampton situation is one of the sharpest illustrations yet of how tariffs are pulling production toward the United States, and it is a warning European plants will recognise, because the same protectionist logic is reshaping supply chains on this side of the Atlantic too. Canada's federal government says it is engaging with Stellantis, Unifor and Ontario to protect the workers and keep the plant running.
AutoNext Take
Behind the corporate language of sustainable manufacturing solutions are 2,200 people who have spent almost three years in professional limbo, told their plant would build the future and then watching that future be shipped elsewhere. Whatever the eventual outcome, that is a genuinely tough human story, and the union's anger is understandable, especially given the public money that was tied to keeping the site alive. A company is entitled to build where it makes economic sense, but promises attached to taxpayer support carry a weight that a spreadsheet does not capture.
The wider lesson is uncomfortable for everyone. Tariffs meant to protect domestic jobs in one country are, in cases like this, directly threatening them in another, and no amount of political messaging changes the fact that a modern, recently retooled factory now sits empty because the maths moved 500 kilometres south. There may yet be a reprieve, a new product, even a buyer, and the property being zoned for automotive use leaves the door open. But for the workers of Brampton, the years of waiting have just got a great deal more anxious.
