On Wednesday,<\/a> the federal government said it was considering taking legal action against the automaker.<\/p>\nIn a letter to CEO Antonio Filosa, Industry Minister M\u00e9lanie Joly wrote Stellantis made important commitments to Canada and its workforce and if the company \u201cchoose not to respect its obligations, we will act in the interests of all Canadians and hold the company to full account, and exercise all options, including legal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We just can\u2019t smile while they steal our jobs\u2019<\/p>\n
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown says the decision by Stellantis appears to be harbinger for the rest of Canada\u2019s auto manufacturing industry if Canada does not fight back against Trump\u2019s tariffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we express concerns about these Trump tariffs, it is real families that are affected. And I\u2019m worried it is not just the 3,000 workers at the Stellantis Brampton plant,\u201d he told CP24 on Wednesday morning. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see this replicated across the country if the U.S. administration is successful at taking these jobs and the associated auto parts jobs. This is a real threat to the Canadian economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown said the future of the auto plant remains unclear and the assurances from the company provide little comfort to the workers who are impacted.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially they are being shown the door by Stellantis, who is being bullied by the Trump administration. And It\u2019s going to hurt. It\u2019s going to sting,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cProvincial and Canadian governments have put a lot of money into this company. There was a flashy announcement a few years back in Windsor where they put billions into this company for the purpose of jobs in Ontario\u2026 and I hope that the lawyers for the Government of Canada are looking at every cent that has been spent in this company to say, \u2018We want it back if obligations are not upheld.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement released Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the federal government will \u201calways be there\u201d for Canadian auto workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether with the Government of Ontario and Unifor, we are working with the company to develop the right measures to protect Stellantis employees and to create new opportunities for them in and around Brampton,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have further made clear that we expect Stellantis to fulfill the undertakings they have made to the workers of Brampton.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ford said he will discuss the ongoing tariffs when he meets with Carney on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat my message to the prime minister when I meet him on Thursday is if you can\u2019t get a deal, let\u2019s start hitting him back. Let\u2019s start hitting the U.S. back hard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are nice, nice, nice. Play nice in the sandbox\u2026 I am sick and tired of sitting and rolling over. We need to fight back.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2018What are we willing to fight for?\u2019<\/p>\n
Brown said he wants to see Canada push back against Trump\u2019s attempts to decimate the auto industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of tools that Canada has. Canada provides significant trade to the U.S. We are their greatest trading partner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just can\u2019t smile while they steal our jobs and damage our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
His comments were echoed by Lana Payne, the national president of Unifor, the union representing workers at the Brampton plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is we\u2019ve been saying since the beginning of this year that this trade war would have this kind of impact if we didn\u2019t fight back… Donald Trump has been very clear from the beginning that he was coming for our auto jobs,\u201d she told CP24 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are not going to fight for the auto sector and the 150,000 direct jobs in that sector and the half a million jobs that depend on this sector in this country, what are we willing to fight for?\u201d<\/p>\n
Have you been impacted by the decision by Stellantis to move production of its Jeep Compass to Illinois? Are you concerned about your livelihood and what this could mean for Brampton. Share your story by emailing us at torontonews@bellmedia.ca with your name, general location, and phone number in case we want to follow up. Your comments may be used in a future story.<\/p>\n
With files from CTV Toronto\u2019s Laura Sebben <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premier Doug Ford said he has been given assurances by the president of Stellantis that the Brampton auto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-215879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}