Industry and Technology Committee on Oct. 29th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

We have to discuss it as long as there is to discuss it.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

There's no cut-off from them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

There's no cut-off whatsoever. All I'm suggesting is that instead of having what could be a 10, 15, 20, or 60-minute long discussion with witnesses still here let's finish the predetermined allotted amount of time out of respect to them and the members who still have time remaining. Then we can agree as a committee that we will resume to the motion that you've moved.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I have one more question. I believe we had hands up here so we have a speaking order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I will honour the speaking order that was attempted to be established here, which I have as Mr. Falk, Ms. Borrelli, Mr. Guglielmin. I will resume that speaking order and commence it once we finish the allotted time we've set aside for witnesses.

I'm just looking for consent from the committee. Simply put, I don't want the witnesses to have to wait around while we have a discussion about this because they've made themselves available. Certainly Mr. Volpe, Mr. DiCaro and Ms. Payne have a lot on their plate, a lot of people to talk to, and I don't want to hold them up any further.

In that case, Madam Dancho, we will return to your motion upon the conclusion of questioning. Your time has expired.

Mr. Bardeesy, the floor is yours for five minutes, please.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I put a question to Mr. Hines about the productivity of the Brampton plant.

I'm wondering Ms. Payne, or Mr. DiCaro, if you have some further comments or data to support their views on the productivity of that plant.

[Lana Payne]

Angelo.

[Angelo DiCaro, Director of Research, Unifor]

I appreciate the question. I don't know how detailed you want me to be on this. It's fair to say, and I would imagine any Stellantis official would agree with me, that that plant has been in operation for 40 years and it has been an exceptionally productive plant. They've entrusted that plant to build the vehicles that Mr. Volpe buys, not just because Mr. Volpe is buying them, but because they are hugely profitable vehicles. That plant for a long time has been the sole-source factory for some of the most lucrative muscle cars in the Dodge lineup. They were very proud of building those cars.

If you have seen a Dodge Charger within the last 20 years, it was only ever built in one facility in the world and that's Brampton, Ontario. You don't trust a bad plant to build your most important cars. That's why that plant is so critically important.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you for that.

As a follow-up question, did the question of an electric vehicle availability standard ever get in the way of those Chargers being produced?

[Angelo DiCaro]

I'll say no. The bigger issue, if I'm being honest, with product portfolios to meet electric vehicle or fuel economy standards stems from the U.S. EPA rules on fuel economy. Canada builds cars for the North American market. If they change the regulations in the U.S. for fuel economy we follow those rules. That has had a more influential impact on the shift in production than any other policy that we're aware of. The Brampton lineup of cars was winding down before we were even having a conversation about EV mandates in Canada frankly. It's hard to test that against that policy. That's the best I can tell you.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

After the restructuring of the sector in the aftermath of the financial crisis, there was significant federal government, Ontario government and U.S. federal government assistance to two of the major companies. As part of those assistance packages your workers, your members, had to make some significant sacrifices. I also recall in that period that there was a lot of alignment between Unifor and the sector to jointly advocate for new mandates. Can you just tell a bit of the story about how the sector was working together with the union for a long period of time and perhaps what has changed in just the last few months?

[Lana Payne]

I would say we still work together with the sector when we can, because we want to have a robust auto sector in Canada, and that means we work with automakers and with Flavio and his organization. We try to make sure we can promote an auto sector for Canada, because it's so critically important to having an advanced manufacturing base in this country, to the industrial base of Canada and to 500,000 Canadians who depend on it for their employment. Therefore, we will find a time when we will work together, again, on all of the policies that we need to work on, to make sure we have an industry that is supported and able to grow. I believe we will get to that place once we get through this difficult period.

The reality is that we build cars together across North America, and the U.S. depends on us in order to build the cars they build there too, and they depend on our market. Eventually, I really hope saner heads prevail here and we continue to have a great North American auto industry.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you.

I have a question for Mr. Volpe—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Be very quick, Mr. Bardeesy.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Volpe, Ms. Payne just spoke a bit to the role of Minister Joly and the industry folks in advocacy during these last few weeks. I'm just wondering whether you could share your views on that advocacy, from your perspective.

[Flavio Volpe]

We asked the Minister of Industry to take a really firm stance on the covenants that Stellantis and General Motors signed with the federal government, to the benefit of both those companies, but also suppliers, workers and the communities alike. We thought the response was very firm and very quick. In the remission order move, together with Minister Champagne, I think we have the attention of the decision-makers there, who are not happy about that, but I think it was a very important articulation of the leverage we have—Lana talked about the $100-billion market they sell into.

Look, if you're going to get tariff remissions because you're building here and, then, you decide not to build here, then you're going to be like Nissan, Hyundai and everybody else who wants to sell here. I appreciate the very strong leadership and response in that matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, you have two and a half minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Payne and Mr. DiCaro, what lessons can the government learn from this story in terms of how it structures its industrial policy? Should the government demand more job or investment guarantees, for the well-being of workers in communities, when it takes measures and develops policies to support large businesses in the manufacturing sector? What lessons can the government learn from this story in order to implement better industrial policies in the future?

[Lana Payne]

Whenever we're hit with a moment like this, we will always argue that government should have strong industrial policy and support sectors, like the auto and aerospace industry, and make sure we're doing all of the things we can do—a modern nation must do that. However, when you're in a moment like this, you should pause to look and examine, “What did we do? What can we do better?” We should always do this. What policies can we improve upon? Can we strengthen the strings that are attached to the investments that companies receive? If so, what does that look like? Yes, I would say that this is a good moment to look back at all of that and say, “How can we improve?” Maybe we can't, but it is worth a review and examination. I think it's a responsible thing to do.

[Angelo DiCaro]

I will add one supplement to this because I think it's a great question on the lessons we have to learn about building an industrial strategy.

I'm going to set aside the criticism and the opaqueness of the covenants struck. These are not public documents, so I'll set aside the confidentiality implications of having these agreements. We'll save that for another time.

The mechanisms that have been put in place, these very detailed application-based funding mechanisms frustrate a lot of employers because it takes time and they have to sign a lot of paperwork to do these things. However, it shows that this has actually been proven useful because we have a stake now, when we wouldn't have had a stake in a different policy formation. I'll give you an example of that, and that is giving blanket tax cuts to companies. The shift to investment tax credits, within the EV approach we've taken as a country, comes with speed, efficiencies and a lot of risk because we cannot hold those companies to account, like we are doing right now. I think that's a lesson that has to be taken and explored further.

I'm glad to see that this new strategic response fund is taking a page from the strategic innovation fund in its makeup, and we aren't going too deep into a different model of tax cuts without strings attached.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Borelli, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Payne, Stellantis and other automakers have received record public subsidies. Do you think the federal and Ontario governments negotiated strong enough job retention clauses, or should future agreements include clawback provisions if employment promises are not met?

[Lana Payne]

I haven't seen the agreements. Maybe you all have in camera, but I certainly haven't seen them. I've been very clear that I think when we're looking at investing in any industry in Canada that we have to look at having strings attached with respect to employment, and making sure that we have Canadian content, all of the things that you would consider in terms of making sure that our economy gets the best of those investments.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Can you comment on how Unifor is working to ensure that women in the skilled trades and manufacturing have equal access to the new Windsor battery plant jobs?