Patti Thomas felt like she’d won the lottery when she landed a full-time job in the paint shop at Stellantis’s Brampton assembly plant in 2016, just two months after giving birth to her third daughter.
asserted
she → feel → daughter
At the time, she was 36, had a university degree in social work, and was making $20 an hour as a director at a youth shelter, with no benefits or pension plan.
asserted
she → have → benefits
The Stellantis offer was her ticket to the kind of stability she’d grown up seeing in her own family.
asserted
she → grow → family
Her grandfather and great-grandfather had worked in the auto industry, as had her parents, who took pride in building cars at the very same Brampton plant, earning good union wages and a pension.
asserted
who → work → wages
For seven years, Thomas followed in their footsteps, sealant gun in hand, bending and reaching over vehicles for eight to 12 hours a day, six days a week.
asserted
Thomas → follow → hours
The work was gruelling, but she took home a paycheque large enough to support her three daughters as a single mom.
asserted
she → gruelle → mom
That chapter came to an end in late 2023 when Stellantis announced plans to retool the Brampton plant to build the next-generation Jeep Compass electric SUV.
asserted
Stellantis → come → SUV
After three years of waiting, she and some 2,000 fellow workers found their futures thrown into uncertainty when Stellantis confirmed this week that it planned to sell the idled plant to Canadian armoured-vehicle maker Roshel.
asserted
it → find → Roshel
It’s unclear whether the assembly workers will soon face termination and where they will find their next jobs.
uncertain
they → ’ → jobs
On Thursday, Unifor national president Lana Payne said she feels the sale to Roshel was essentially final.
asserted
sale → say → Roshel
“We have a sale of a plant and everybody in the country says they didn’t want to have a sale of a plant, and yet here we are.
asserted
we → say → plant
The plant has been sold,” Payne said.
asserted
Payne → sell → ?
Roshel CEO Roman Shimonov told the Star Tuesday that the federal government supports his plans for the plant, and that his company does not consider itself bound by any of Stellantis’s obligations to its workers.
asserted
itself → tell → workers
But on Thursday, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly formally notified Stellantis that the plant sale violates its funding agreement with Ottawa, giving the automaker 30 days to remedy the breaches or repay an unspecified amount of government funding.
asserted
sale → notify → funding
On Friday the minister said the government had ”put an aggressive package to Stellantis” to prevent the sale, and was still in “solution mode” to prevent it from taking place.
asserted
government → say → place
When the sale was announced Monday, Thomas said her heart nearly stopped.
asserted
heart → announce → ?
She felt angry and defeated, but more than anything, she wanted answers from the company that had long held promises of a bright future for Brampton.
asserted
that → feel → Brampton
“Where am I going to find a job like this?
asserted
I → go → this
It’s not out there,” she said.
asserted
she → ’ → ?
“I guess I would have to go back to school to re-educate myself to get a better job that’s going to provide me with a pension, financial stability and benefits.
asserted
that → guess → pension
But I’m 47 years old.
asserted
I → ’m → ?
“If this was your plan, Stellantis, why didn’t you tell us before this?” Thomas added.
asserted
Thomas → tell → this
“We’ve been sitting here for three years putting our lives on hold for Stellantis.”
asserted
We → sit → Stellantis
Right until December 2023, the Brampton assembly plant was churning out as many as 1,000 vehicles a day, including Dodge Chargers, Challengers and Chrysler 300 sedans.
asserted
plant → churn → Chargers
In 2022, Stellantis drew up an ambitious $1.32-billion blueprint to retool the facility and secured federal and provincial funding for its Brampton and Windsor plants.
asserted
Stellantis → draw → plants
The transformation envisioned as many as 2,370 jobs, with full three-shift operations expected to return by the end of this year.
asserted
operations → envision → year
While the plant sat idle, 2,200 employees continued to receive about 70 per cent of their regular earnings under their 2023 collective agreement.
asserted
employees → sit → agreement
The contract set hourly wages at $44 for production workers with three years of experience, equivalent to about $91,500 a year based on a 40-hour workweek, compared with $116,400 for skilled trades workers.
asserted
contract → set → workers
Joshua Taylor, 34, who specialized in installing engine belts, had planned his family’s future around the promised timeline.
asserted
who → specialize → timeline
He and his wife, who also worked at the plant, decided to have a second child while they were laid off, seeing the time as a chance to make up for the moments he had missed with their first child, a daughter who was born in 2019, the same year he started working for Stellantis.
Taylor was drawn to the Brampton plant after seeing how his best friend’s parents built a comfortable middle-class life after three decades of hard labour at the Brampton assembly plant.
asserted
parents → work → plant
“I wanted to be where they were, where they could own their home, have two kids, have a driveway with two cars in it,” said Taylor.
uncertain
Taylor → want → it
But what was supposed to be a yearlong retooling stretched on.
asserted
supposed → suppose → ?
First, Stellantis paused the retooling in February 2025, citing uncertainty over U.S. tariffs and changes to electric-vehicle policies.
asserted
Stellantis → pause → policies
Then, in October, Taylor and his co-workers received a robocall from the company informing them that the planned Jeep Compass production was being moved south.
asserted
production → receive → them
Taylor said anxiety and fear were “understatements” for describing what he endured during nearly three years of waiting in limbo, not knowing when, or if, he would return to work.
asserted
he → say → work
But he held on to hope, buoyed by repeated assurances from Stellantis and Unifor that they still had plans for Brampton and it was just a small “hiccup” that would be overcome.
asserted
that → hold → Brampton
“I feel betrayed by Roshel.
asserted
I → betray → Roshel
I feel betrayed by Stellantis.
asserted
I → betray → Stellantis
I feel betrayed by the government,” said Taylor, his voice breaking.
asserted
voice → betray → government
“Hearing the news on Monday and looking at my kids afterwards was really hard because I feel like I failed them.
asserted
I → hear → them
…and 30 more, not listed.
The Aporia
