‘There are going to be layoffs’: CAMI to resume production in November with just one shift

The Ingersoll plant won’t open until mid-November, with even more layoffs than expected. CTV London’s Bryan Bicknell has more.

Officials with the union representing workers at the CAMI (Canadian Automotive Manufacturing Inc.) assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont., are still trying to process yet another blow.

They learned last week that the plant, shut down since this past spring, will not resume production until mid-November and with fewer workers going back than they expected.

“And when we do come back to work, it’s only going to be one shift,” said UNIFOR Local 88 plant chair, Mike Van Boekel.

Van Boekel said the union has been informed by GM that when the plant resumes operations, it will be with just 400 people. That’s down from 1,050 and significantly less than the 600 they expected would be back.

“There are going to be layoffs. We’ve gone to the company right now to talk about retirement incentives — anybody who may want to quit, give them some money and hopefully narrow our numbers down,” said Van Boekel.

“But it’s going to be tough on hundreds of people.”

In a written response to CTV News, GM Canada said, “this is not related to tariffs — we are taking proactive, strategic steps to ensure our operations remain aligned with real-time demand.”

Ingersoll Mayor Brian Petrie said he believes it’s a continuation of why the spring layoffs happened in the first place — slower sales.

“But there’s a lot of things that are going on, certainly south of the border,

that don’t help the situation. I know that there’s cancellation of shifts at the Detroit plant as well. So, this is not just an Ingersoll item, it’s an overall economic situation,” commented Petrie.

The news comes as the federal government announces it’s delaying a plan to force automakers to hit minimum sales levels for EVs.

GM Canada said, “We welcome this first step from the government to align regulations to customer demand, and we look forward to working with them as they review the regulation.”

Adding insult to injury, the new battery plant built onsite at CAMI, which opened in 2024 to produce batteries for the Brightdrop van, will sit idle for the foreseeable future. According to UNIFOR, the batteries to equip the vehicles will come from south of the border.

“We’re the only battery plant in Canada for GM and we won’t be building them, so they’re going to come from, I’m assuming, 99 per cent sure it’s going to come out of the U.S., which just shows you exactly what’s going on with tariffs,” said Van Boekel.

GM Canada said this is a “temporary adjustment to align production to customer demand and leverage our flexible manufacturing footprint to manage battery inventory levels.”