As Joshua Taylor watches his seven-year-old daughter and three-year-old son play at a Brampton, Ont., playground not far from their home, he says a wave of emotion comes over him -- thinking about the sacrifices he’s made for his employer, Stellantis, over the years, and how that job might now be gone for good. “I sacrificed, we sacrificed,” he said through tears, recalling working through the pandemic as an “essential” worker and having to keep his distance from his children. “I had to say hi to my kids through a door.” His wife, Samantha Lafave, also a Stellantis employee, has been sitting idle alongside her husband – just like the plant where they worked for nearly three years. But this week, news that Stellantis has agreed to sell the Brampton assembly plant to Canadian armoured vehicle manufacturer Roshel left the couple feeling betrayed and questioning their family’s future. “It was just like everything came crashing down and you were filled with fear and loss and heartbreak,” Lafave told CTV News. She said the feelings stem from realizing they might lose “the future that we have (spent) the last eight years of our life building and looking forward to.” The Brampton plant stopped production in December 2023 for what was supposed to be a temporary shutdown to retool the facility, but Stellantis ultimately moved its planned Jeep Compass production to Illinois amid a tariff dispute with the United States. On Monday, the automaker announced it had signed an agreement to sell the facility to Roshel, leaving more than 2,000 laid-off workers in limbo. “We feel (a sense of) betrayal. We feel sad, devastated and angry,” Taylor said of the past year. “Progressively more and more angry.” A promise of priority, but no guarantee of a job Both Stellantis and Roshel have told CTV News the sale would breathe new life into the idled facility, creating jobs for Canadian workers. Roshel says it plans to establish a centre for advanced automotive and defence manufacturing, with the potential to create more than 2,000 jobs as production ramps up. “Laid-off workers will receive first priority consideration as we hire,” the company said in a statement Friday. But Vito Beato, president of Unifor Local 1285, which represents workers at the Brampton plant, isn’t reassured. “There are no guarantees there,” Beato told CTV News. “Priority – what does that mean? “We’re talking about our collective agreement that we already have here and that should be respected. All our workers should be following through with those successor rights and our collective agreements.” Beato says the union isn’t giving up on its collective agreement with Stellantis – and neither, it appears, is the federal government. In an interview with Vassy Kapelos on CTV’s Question Period airing Sunday, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Stellantis could be eligible for additional taxpayer funding if it agrees not to sell the plant. “If it’s to save the plant, we would be actually doing what we’ve done with Ford, what we’ve done with Honda, and what we’ve done with Toyota,” Joly said, referring to government support for automakers affected by U.S. tariffs. Her comments come after Ottawa threatened legal action against Stellantis over its contractual obligations. Questions about Roshel’s plans and reputation If the sale goes through, there are plenty of unknowns about the new jobs: whether they would offer comparable wages; whether workers would remain unionized; and what would happen to the protections they’ve had under their collective agreement. “They should be taking our members, they should be taking our collective agreement,” Beato said. “We have to sustain a life. We have kids, you know, we have obligations,” Lafave said, becoming emotional as she considered whether another job could provide comparable pay and hours. For the couple, however, their concerns go beyond the size of a paycheque. Roshel has drawn protests over a proposed sale of armoured vehicles to Israel, which the company said were intended for police use. Canada stopped approving new arms export permits for Israel that could be used in Gaza in January 2024. The company also faced protests outside its existing Brampton facility after securing a roughly $10-million contract to supply 20 armoured vehicles to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. “I’m very anti-ICE -- it’s a very disgusting taste in my mouth” Taylor said, adding that he is uncomfortable with the company’s business dealings with Israel as well. Lafave says working for Roshel would be difficult after years at a company she describes as family-oriented. “It’s hard to see how you could support or be a part of a company that is taking that away from others,” she said. Through all of the uncertainty, the couple is still holding on to hope that the sale won’t go through – and that they’ll someday return to the assembly line. “Our hearts are with Stellantis. Our hearts are in that company,” Lafave said. “We’re going to go down fighting for it.”
