The Unifor Stellantis Council united as it vowed to take any action necessary to hold Stellantis to its commitments to manufacture vehicles at the Brampton Assembly Plant (BAP).

At an emergency meeting held October 17 in London, Ontario, the Council voted unanimously to support a Statement on Brampton Assembly Plant following Stellantis’ declaration that it was abandoning its commitment to retool the facility for production of the next-generation Jeep Compass and moving that work to the United States as part of a new $13 billion investment south of the border.

The Council made the union’s position clear: the promised J4U (Jeep Compass) program that was contractually committed to Brampton Assembly will stay at Brampton Assembly.

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We bargained a commitment to Brampton with Stellantis that we took and ratified with our members. Now we are at a point where the company is saying we don’t care, and we don’t recognize it,” said James Stewart, Unifor Stellantis Master Bargaining Chairperson.

“If we lose this fight, it’s not just that we’ve lost the Brampton Assembly Plant, but we’ve also lost the ability to bargain job security in the future if the company is going to ignore signed documents. Stellantis has commitments to Canada – they have commitments to Brampton Assembly Plant.”

Vito Beato, President of Local 1285, spoke to the devastating impact on Brampton members who have been on layoff since January 2024.

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Members are worried that our plant is gone, that there is no product for our plant. I see it in their eyes; I hear it in their voices. All they’ve done is do what they’ve been asked to do and deliver big profits to the corporation. They deserve product in Brampton,” said Beato.

As Council delegates discussed next steps, the message was clear: Unifor is prepared to put everything on the line to defend Brampton jobs.

Stellantis Unit Chairs stood together to put forward a motion to do anything necessary to support BAP workers in maintaining production commitments. In a show of solidarity, Unifor Auto Council Chairperson and Ford Master Bargaining Committee Chair John D’Agnolo and General Motors Master Bargaining Committee Chair Trevor Longpre pledged their support to defend Canadian auto jobs in Brampton and across the country.

“Nothing is leaving that plant. Because everyone is watching to see what we will do to protect BAP because it’s going to snowball if we fail. So, we will do whatever it takes to protect BAP – to protect our auto industry,” stressed Beato.

Unifor National President Lana Payne emphasized the far-reaching implications of Stellantis’ decision.

“We all know what’s at stake here. If Stellantis can get away with this, what’s stopping the next corporation — whether it’s GM, or Ford, or any other company — because Brampton is the line in the sand. If this is allowed to occur, the bleeding of jobs will continue unabated, and we have half a million jobs depending on this industry,” said Payne.

Payne warned the company is engaging in stall tactics with public statements that it has plans for Brampton that it refuses to specify as it transitions work out of Canada.

“Stellantis thinks they can figure out what they are going to do with Brampton after we get through trade negotiations with the United States – that is not what was promised to our members. This is Stellantis trying to punt this problem down the road, and we all know how that will end up. We have three thousand members hanging on by a thread – so these assurances from Stellantis are worthless right now.”

Joining the meeting from Ottawa, Payne shared that she has been in direct talks with government officials, including Prime Minister Carney, where she underscored the need for a Team Canada approach.

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We can’t allow Trump to pit province against province, sector against sector and worker against worker. We need to stand together, we want products in the plant, and we want the company to be held accountable to their commitments,” said Payne.

As the Council adjourned, the message was unanimous and unwavering: Stellantis must keep its promises to Brampton, and Unifor will use every tool at its disposal to make sure it does.

TORONTO – General Motors’ announcement that production of the BrightDrop electric delivery van will cease at the CAMI Assembly Plant in Ingersoll, Ontario is the latest casualty of the Trump administration’s dangerous and destabilizing auto policies.

“The reality is that CAMI was hit from both directions by Trump as he aggressively acted to undo EV supports and hit Canadian auto assembly plants with a 25% tariff,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne. “Now more than 1,000 workers and their families are paying the price for Trump’s political interference and GM’s failure to hold the line.”

The announcement affects more than 1,000 Unifor Local 88 members currently on layoff after the plant was idled in May. At the time, GM cited slowing commercial-EV demand, but today’s decision confirms a full end to the BrightDrop line.

“We have a lot of members with decades of dedication to GM who are now abandoned,” said Unifor Local 88 GM CAMI Chairperson Mike Van Boekel. “These are highly skilled workers who delivered for this company and this community. They deserve a future at CAMI—not a dead end.”

GM has made no commitment on what comes next for the facility. CAMI remains a critical regional economic driver and was the centrepiece of a $1-billion retooling supported by federal and provincial investments.

“After billions of dollars in public support to build an EV future, Canada cannot allow companies to simply walk away the moment there is pressure from Washington or turbulence in the market,” said Payne. “Canada must respond with a real industrial strategy that defends Canadian jobs, leverages our market, and pushes back on Trump’s economic bullying.”

The CAMI blow comes ahead of the company’s previously announced elimination of a shift at GM Oshawa, scheduled for January 2026, heightening concerns about GM’s long-term manufacturing footprint in Canada. The news also follows a decision by Stellantis to relocate Jeep Compass production from Brampton to the United States.

Unifor will meet with GM and both levels of government immediately to press for a new product mandate and ensure CAMI remains a pillar of Canadian auto production.

TORONTO – President Trump’s new tariffs on heavy-duty trucks and buses are the latest direct attack on our auto manufacturing sector—another act of economic blackmail designed to drag investment and good jobs out of Canada.

“Trump is coming for Canada’s industrial manufacturing base, weaponizing tariffs one sector at a time using security-threat provisions that everyone knows are completely bogus,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne. “The question is, how many more hits is Canada willing to take before we fight back?”

On October 17, Trump once again invoked Section 232 of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act, inventing a national security threat in order to slap 25% tariffs on heavy-duty pickup trucks and semi-trailers and 10% tariffs on buses. Even for vehicles that qualify under CUSMA, the tariffs target non-U.S. parts used in vehicles built in Canada, creating a deliberate disincentive for companies to manufacture here. The message is obvious: move production to the United States—or pay.

The tariffs, set to take effect November 1, will hit Unifor workplaces already hammered by Trump’s trade war, including commercial truck builder Paccar in Quebec, where workers have already endured repeated layoffs, and General Motors Oshawa, which is slated to lose a shift early next year, among others.

“Jobs are being lost in real time while the Trump administration drags out negotiations and we’re told to be patient as we still have the best in a bunch of bad international trade deals,” said Unifor Quebec Director Daniel Cloutier. “We need a united cross-sector approach to protect our good-paying jobs.”

This latest blow comes on the heels of Stellantis’ move to abandon its legal commitment to build the next-generation Jeep Compass in Brampton, shifting production, and roughly 3,000 Canadian jobs, to Illinois instead.

“The reality is corporations are buckling to pressure from the U.S. and If we don’t fight back now, we’re handing him our jobs, our leverage and our future,” Payne warned.

On Nov. 2, 2025, Unifor marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists to shine a spotlight on how journalism is essential to free societies and functioning democracies.

Journalists give a voice to the voiceless, they tell our stories, and they hold the powerful to account, but too often they pay a high price for this work through threats, harassment, physical attacks, legal intimidation, sometimes even death, with little or no justice and impunity for perpetrators.

Globally, the scale of violence and harassment of journalists are of grave concern. UNESCO reports that since 2006, roughly 85% of killings of journalists remain unpunished.

In 2024 alone, at least 124 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide, the highest number in over three decades of tracking by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In Canada, threats, harassment, legal intimidation, and obstruction are growing.

Journalists covering politics, protests, Indigenous issues, or environmental campaigns, have increasingly reported being surveilled, doxxed, threatened, or faced legal or regulatory pressure. For example, in Aug. 2025, Unifor condemned the chilling actions of the anonymous figures who targeted and harassed Carrie Tait, a Globe and Mail journalist who had been investigating allegations of political interference at the Alberta Health Agency.

Canadian legal protections for press freedom exist. Charter rights for expression, defamation laws and protections for sources, but years of precedent show that laws alone don’t deter harassment, threats, or physical attacks. Many cases either do not lead to charges, or charges do not lead to convictions.

The digital age has brought online harassment—especially of women, Indigenous, racialized, and other equity-deserving media workers—social media-fuelled threats, doxxing and invasive surveillance. These threats often escalate into in-person risks.

To end impunity against journalists, the following steps are essential:

• Codify specific offences for threats, harassment, doxxing, intimidation of journalists (online and in-person), with clear enforcement.
• Allocate resources to law enforcement and judicial systems for training, handling, and prioritizing cases involving media workers.
• Provide training in digital security, physical safety, and trauma resilience.
• Ensure that freelancers have access to the same protections as staff journalists.
• Recognize that women, Indigenous, racialized, 2SLGBTQIA+ journalists often are more targeted, and tailor supports accordingly.
• Ensure sustainable funding and infrastructure for journalism. Local news needs support to survive, because a weakened media means fewer watchdogs and fewer protections.

Unifor is committed to playing an active and ongoing role to help. Our ongoing and recent initiatives to support journalists, media workers and journalism include:

• Unifor Media’s Help Is Here website  provides supports for journalists and media workers facing harassment, whether they are members or freelancers. It provides links to peer support, advice and tips on documenting abuse, guidance for reporting harassment to employers or law enforcement, and practical advice on protecting personal information.
• Fact-Checked, Unifor’s Media Action Plan campaign, aims to remind Canadians that news from a trusted news source is news that has been fact checked, reviewed, and verified.
• The union is developing and prioritizing bargaining language for collective agreements that addresses harassment, threats, safety, ensuring that media workers have clear processes to report abuse, support, and recourse.

Journalism is a public good. A society that allows crimes against journalists to go unpunished is a society that risks losing its accountability and its democracy.

We must ensure that no journalist fears for their safety, no truth is silenced by impunity, and that justice is not a promise, but a reality.