Carney calls Stellantis plant sale 'unacceptable,' Poilievre demands Joly's firing

Stellantis says it's planning to offer priority jobs to Stellantis employees when it takes over the plant in Brampton, Ontario. But the union for the laid off workers says it's not happy with the plans and it is calling the deal a quote worst case scenario for auto workers. We know that more than 2,000 people lost their jobs when the plant shut down in 2023. Stellantis says the sale will get the site Back in production. Still, plant workers are calling it a betrayal. Prime Minister Mark Carney had this to say just last hour. The situation in Stellantis, the Brampton plant, is unacceptable. It violates the obligations that Stellantis has under several agreements. But to be more fundamental, it's a betrayal of the workers. Now, the Prime Minister said he is disappointed in the sale and that Stellantis has walked back on its obligations to Canada. The CBC's Olivia Stefanovic is live in Ottawa tracking the story for us. So what did Mark Carney say about the affected workers? Well, Prime Minister Mark Carney says that Stellantis has essentially broken its commitment to these workers and to Canada for that matter, which has done a lot to shore up Stellantis, especially during this trade war with the United States. We heard from the Prime Minister that Industry Minister Melanie Joly will be convening a high-stakes meeting on Thursday in Toronto with all the stakeholders involved here, and that at the end of the day, the government is prepared to use every tool in its toolbox to defend these jobs. And there are about 2,000 workers who were employed at this assembly plant, in Brampton, Ontario. There was an expectation from Unifor that they would continue to keep their jobs, even though the plant did sit idle since... 2023. But now with the sale going to Rochelle of this plant, even though that company says that these workers will be given priority as rehires, it's not clear that they will all be rehired. So a lot of disappointment here from the union representing these auto workers. They're also saying that this plant being retooled to become an armored vehicle manufacturer is not the same as ...as building regular vehicles from the ground up, so... A lot of concerns here about what this will mean for all these families who are being touched by this sale to Rochelle. And the federal government certainly unhappy with how this has all proceeded, especially since it's been trying to work with Stellantis to find a solution to keep these workers on. But of course, that is not happening now with the sale going forward. And now, Olivia, Mark Carney's response came after criticism from Pierre Poilievre and the federal Conservatives. What can you tell us about that? Well, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre says the federal government has not handled this well at all and is now calling for Industry Minister Melanie Joly to be fired because of the fact that this assembly plant is now being sold to Rochelle. Here's more from the Conservative leader. Our country has lost yet another auto plant and workers have lost yet more jobs. She wrote yesterday that workers deserve answers. Minister, they deserve their damn jobs and Canadians deserve their damn tax dollars. In fact, Canadians deserve accountability from your costly, job-killing, liberal government. This Liberal Industry Minister, just like Champagne before her, and the entire Liberal government, is costing Canadians money and jobs and driving our economy into the ditch. All we got from the Minister yesterday was more theatre. She's been threatening lawsuits for years. She's done nothing. That is why today, the official opposition is calling for the Liberal Prime Minister to fire his failed, costly, job-killing Liberal Industry Minister. Now, the prime minister responded to Poilievre's call there for the firing of industry minister Melanie Jolie, saying that Jolie has actually done an exceptional job, in Mark Carney's view, under difficult circumstances. And he was speaking with Jolie beside him today. We also heard from Jolie herself, who took questions from reporters, saying that patience has worn out for the federal government, saying that she has tried to work with Stellantis over the past year to find a solution to protect these more than... OK, Olivia, thank you for this. That's the CBC's Olivia Stefanovic, live in Ottawa. So, for more on this story, let's go now to the CBC's Megan Fitzpatrick. She's outside the Stellantis plant in Brampton, Ontario. Megan, you are getting reaction from workers there. What have you heard so far? Yeah, we're hearing that workers at the Brampton plant feel betrayed and they feel angry. There are some Unifor supporters here outside the plant right now. Unifor is the union that represents these auto workers. Nobody behind me works at the plant, but they are here to show support for for those workers and we've been doing interviews with workers from the plant who say they had been They've been bracing for this news, but now that it's official, they're digesting it. And as one worker put it, he said, it sucks. These workers have been living in limbo for years now it was about three years ago that they were put on temporary layoff while the plant shut down to retool to build a new model they were supposed to be building Jeeps at this plant now but then Stellantis putting a pause on that plant and about a year ago announcing that that Jeep would be built in the United States instead not here and so these workers have been waiting to find out whether they would be coming back to this plant We'll be right back. And if so, what they would be building. It's been a lot of uncertainty, hard for these workers to plan their lives. Here's a bit more of what we've been hearing from one worker. It was a shock. Like, we just didn't really know what to say. We didn't know what to feel. Because we all, as a family, kind of just understood that, like, we just lost our job. The thing that we were kind of holding on to for so, so long. And, you know, any hope that we had of potentially coming back. When we heard the news kind of just got shattered. And now Rochelle, the company buying the plant, does say that they intend on employing thousands more people on top of the ones they already employ and that they will give priority to laid off Stellantis workers, though they don't have any necessary commitments on that front. So this worker we spoke to saying, Arti, Thank you very much, Dorothy. What will those jobs be? How many people might Rochelle hire? For those that they don't, what will happen to them? So a lot of uncertainty and stress still. We've also been hearing from the mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown. He says he thinks all Canadians should be angry by this news, not just people here in Brampton. Here's a bit more of what he told us. I think the warning here is that if the Trump administration can bully Stellantis to leave Canada, who are they going to bully next? If we allow Stellantis to leave easily and ignore their legal obligations, this will not be the last auto plant that falls in Canada. Really, this is ground zero of protecting auto jobs. At the same time, Rochelle is a great local company. They have built light armored utility vehicles for a period of time in our city. I don't take away... From their aspirations and their ambitions to create thousands of new jobs, I just disagree that it needs to be at the Stellantis plant. So the mayor of Brampton placing some of the blame there on President Donald Trump. Patrick Brown saying he would like to see the federal government here in Canada take legal action against Stellantis. And he says he wants to work with all levels of government to use every tool they might have at their disposal, Arthie, to try and save these jobs here in Brampton. And we know too, Megan, that the union representing the workers have reacted to this news. What's their plan going forward? Yeah, I mean, they are calling this shameful and disgusting behavior by Stellantis. And they say this is devastating news, not just for the people who work at the plant, but for the Canadian auto industry in general. So many jobs also depend on this plant in the supplier chain, auto parts. And those businesses will be impacted by this, the union is saying. They are frustrated that the trade war with the United States, the tariffs are hitting home here in Brampton. They had kind of been hoping that They're saying that Stellantis would wait out the trade war, weather the storm. The auto industry is accustomed to going through its ups and downs. And they're saying by Stellantis selling this plant that Donald Trump can then use this as a trophy to weigh around and justify his trade policies. They think that the company is violating collective agreements and commitments to the federal government. Here's more of what we're hearing from one of the local union reps. They shouldn't be allowing the sale then because this is not the answer for our assembly plant to have a defense contractor come in there, say that they're going to build cars and have people working there. It's all a smoke show. A defense procurement builds one car a day. Our plant was building thousands of cars a day, employing thousands of members and employing thousands of more members in the supplier base. And they're saying they don't like the narrative of, oh, Rochelle is going to offer jobs to these laid-off workers. They're saying any jobs that are offered and secured by laid-off workers, it's still not a substitute for the auto jobs that have been in this city for years and years. The other thing here in terms of the context, Arti, the company and the union are in the midst of contract negotiations. The bargaining started months ago, and it hasn't been going well. Because of all the uncertainty around the Brampton plan, it was back in August that Stellantis and Rochelle announced that they had entered into an MOU on a possible sale. And so those contract negotiations, still going on. Thank you, everyone. And there's a lot of uncertainty for other Stellantis workers in Windsor, for example, and their other facilities. We're hearing from the union that those workers are feeling really stressed out too, because they're not certain about their job security. So the stress is spreading. Okay, thanks for this, Megan. That's the CBC's Megan Fitzpatrick in Brampton, Ontario.