Welp. It’s been a few days on the Brampton front, and it seems like things ain’t gonna slow down. After an initial day of controversy, we’re circling back to Roshel to clarify some things.
My intent was to give things a few days, talk to everyone, etc., before jumping back into the conversation. However, there are several topics and recent developments where I feel I can contribute a bit, so consider this a mini-update of sorts.
As the boy who can stake a claim to keeping up with everyone’s lobbying and meetings, I think I’m a bit qualified to square some things, especially since the big questions over the last day have been whether Madame Joly met Roshel, and whether the Feds had been influencing or actively involved in the sales talks.
Now, I obviously can’t speak to what was said in meetings. What I can do is look at what meetings took place.
Has Roshel met with Madame Joly? No. I have no records in the newsletters of them ever meeting, and her office has now said as much. Does that mean she didn’t know? Absolutely not. I think those two facts need to be separated.
What I can tell you is Roshel has been well engaged with folks on her staff through August and September, including her Chief of Staff Paul Moen, Director of Policy David McFarlane, Senior Policy Advisor Yasmin Atassi, and Brian Botting, her Director of Defence Industrial Strategy.
They met that group on August 21 and again on September 2, twelve days apart. Before that, on July 2, they met key officials in ISED like John MacInnis and Demetrios Xenos, alongside folks from PSPC and DND.
Why does that stand out? To give some context when we speak on irregularities with Roshel’s lobbying, almost every company and firm has idiosyncrasies when it comes to lobbying. How much, who, how it’s formatted. Everyone is mostly unique to someone. It just depends. If you read the newsletter, you make note of who appears more than others.
Roshel doesn’t meet people often. Roshel tends to have some gaps in there and meet few people at a time, usually piling several individual meets into a day or so. Rarely do they gather big groups, and even rarer do they engage with the Minister level, usually sticking to MPs or PSPC and Defence folks at the Deputy Minister level and below. They go to ISED or Industry folks only very rarely.
That isn’t to say Roshel had never been in front of her office. They met Moen back in August 2025, then Atassi, Botting and McFarlane in November 2025, and Moen and Botting again in March. That March round came about five weeks after the Defence Industrial Strategy dropped, around the time the LUV limited tender was being really discussed, and the same month Roshel signed for Springfield down south.
After March it goes quiet on the Industry side, with one ADM meeting in June, until the current string. This time we have:
Multiple (4+) people communications in July, August and September with folks in ISED, PSPC, and staff to Madame Joly.
The same core of her office twice in twelve days. Before this, Roshel saw her office every few months.
Rene Sylvestre, listed as an investment advisor in the Minister’s office at the time and now her Director of Strategic Investment, sat in on August 21. An investment advisor is exactly who you’d bring into a plant conversation.
Officials drop out. The bigger Roshel days through the spring and July had DMs, ADMs and DGs in the room. August and September at ISED is political staff only.
The defence side goes quiet. After July 2 there’s been no DND or CAF lobbying, just ISED and some MPs, including Shadow Minister Bezan most recently. The other MPs were Sousa and Sodhi, local to Roshel and not really indicative of anything.
The timing lines up fairly well to what we know publicly. Stellantis told Unifor it was seriously looking at closing and selling the plant on August 12. Nine days later Roshel was in a room with Joly’s Chief of Staff and an investment advisor. The MOU was announced on September 11.
Roman has said he shared the plan with government several months ago, and I have no doubt the proposal was delivered as Roshel said, maybe not directly to the responsible ministers but almost certainly to their staff. That aligns to Roshel’s telling.
Does that mean the Feds were actively a part of the sale on Roshel’s side? I see no evidence myself that they were involved in these negotiations to a substantial degree, certainly not enough for me to say they were actively part. They might have had the proposal and been briefed on things, but that is far different from being engaged in the process.
Ottawa is reported to have been in more than a dozen meetings on this sale. If that’s right, most of that would have been with Stellantis, because it sure doesn’t show up in Roshel’s filings.
I also can’t speak to how open and honest Stellantis was in the process, nor can I speak to what they discussed with folks. Did Stellantis meet with the Feds a lot over the summer? Yes. Did they meet Madame Joly? Also yes. Do I have confidence in saying what they said? Absolutely not. They exist outside our sorta network.
Multiple things can all be true and also maybe half-true. Did this come out of nowhere? Not really. Did the Feds KNOW the deal was signed and would be announced Monday? The PM has now said himself he was aware of some aspects of the sale before it was announced, though he didn’t say which. At the least, I would be shocked if they weren’t aware the talks were serious and kept somewhat updated by Roshel at least.
What we do know is where Ottawa stands on Stellantis. Ottawa launched its dispute over its Stellantis funding last November and served Stellantis with a notice of default in December, and the Minister’s office says it never advocated for the sale.
The PM has called the sale a betrayal and says Ottawa will fully enforce its rights, but that’s aimed at Stellantis and the money, not at blocking Roshel. Stellantis crossed a red line, though, and no matter what, Roshel will be dragged into that whether it deserves it or not.
Where the Deal Stands
Speaking on the deal itself, Roshel being interested in this plant was known to us before CANSEC. They weren’t the only one, mind you. They were the ones who moved quickest and most publicly, but they were one of at least half a dozen buyers that I have heard had interest, and there were other serious negotiations going on.
Some of those are public. Back at the end of the summer, Mayor Brown listed several of the companies that had come to him about the site. BYD had approached about building there. Leapmotor, Stellantis’s Chinese partner, was on the list. So was an Italian automaker he didn’t name.
There were at least two Canadian defence companies, Roshel for light utility armoured vehicles and Dominion Dynamics, who had discussed using the plant to manufacture as well. Like Roshel, Dominion was working with partners to split the plant between several users.
We heard about the sale last week ourselves. To make it clear though, I have not seen Roshel, Dominion, or anyone’s full proposal or their economic outlook for the plant.
The sale is at this time not sealed. It’s subject to government and regulatory approval and expected to close by the end of the year. We don’t expect the Feds to block it, or at least don’t see it as likely. We have seen no indication of that, but things are early, emotional and volatile.
Speaking on Stellantis, and again, I can only speak to what we have heard around, the company has reportedly agreed to lease back 25% of the plant for their own usage. We have heard mixed reports on how settled that is, but our initial assessment is that it is at least serious and in discussions, if not agreed on. It is also our assessment that the company had no intention of returning to the plant at full capacity, but would be open to a reduced footprint like the one being proposed.
We see no indication that Stellantis had any models in preparation or planned for Brampton, as some have rumoured. I’m also not convinced that Stellantis will try to position Leapmotor there a second time, especially when both Ottawa and especially Premier Ford have been clear they would not be satisfied with Chinese kits at Brampton.
It’s also worth remembering that Stellantis and Roshel are already active collaborators in the defence space, primarily through the platforms for the Senator RAM, the SENRAM. The cooperation framework signed with the sale builds on something that already exists, but to what extent, we here are unsure.
On LUV, we don’t think this presents a major risk to Roshel. It could complicate things, though, and push back an announcement while the Feds try to deal with the fallout. We have already heard this week of some announcement or contract delays pushed on by the sale, but have not verified it to our standard.
On Roshel’s side of the factory, Roman has said that Roshel has an LOI from a European major automaker to produce its vehicles in Brampton, and he was clear they are not defence-related but retail, civilian vehicles, calling it just the first LOI of several being discussed. He said Stellantis cannot or will not sell the plant to a competitor, but it can sell to Roshel, and Roshel can bring in other partners.
He listed Daimler, Ford and Stellantis as existing partners separately from the LOI holder, which is a decent hint that it’s none of them. In another interview, he only said Roshel is talking with at least two manufacturers willing to build in Canada, one of them European.
In my own assessments, I have not been able to nail down a conclusive answer to who this might be, and while there are several who could likely fit (about four different companies), I am not confident enough to say a name definitively.
Whoever it is, Roshel seriously wants to get into the commercial and consumer automotive business. Roman has called automotive a new pillar for the company, with Springfield dedicated to it as well. In fact, Brampton is following a very similar pathway and concept to what the company is proposing in Springfield. Sadly, we also know little of that plan as well.
Roshel has also been developing its own electric chassis for years, which could be an avenue for them here in the future.
Either way, Brampton is a lot of plant, with its own stamping, body shop and paint. Floor space, paint capacity and heavy fabrication are things this sector is always short on, so a plant like this shared between partners would be a big deal. I think that part of Roman’s Centre of Excellence pitch holds up whoever the automaker ends up being.
What’s Next
Joly is meeting with Stellantis, Unifor and the province in Toronto today. October’s lobbying communication reports land mid-month, and they’ll tell us whether Roshel’s pace held right up to the sale. The sale is expected to close by the end of the year, and the American tariff on Canadian-built vehicles doubles on January 1 without a deal, which inevitably changes the math for every name on anyone’s list.
Until then, though, we will continue to try and engage with everyone on this sale, and will continue to try and gather whatever information we can on this sale. We will also be looking for what comes out of today’s meeting as well.
Wow, that is a lot of good info. I had no idea that Roshel was going to try and bring consumer vehicle production Brampton…
I hope the feds nail Stellantis to the wall over how they backed out of their commitments, and I hope that Roshel manages to avoid any of the tarnish that really all belongs to Stellantis. The idea of a truely Canadian company being in control of that much vital Canadian manufacturing capacity is exciting for me. While I think Canadian manufacturing is important, I'm not enamored by the status quo where all the primary manufacturing plants are owned by subsidiaries of Foreign firms, and only in the feeder plants do you see much Canadian ownership, like Magna International. I think having Roshel own the plant will be a net positive, in the long run. It will suck for a lot of factory workers and their families in the short term, but change is inevitable, and I prefer the change that comes with benefits.
I had read that for the last 3 years, the plant was kept ready, but that everyone was being paid to stay home until they could find a new product for the plant. 3 frickin years, seriously. This could not be unexpected and the status quo can't stay like that forever. Stellantis needs to just pay the billions in fines/reparations whatever and go. After 3 years, I like the plan divide it into several smaller production lines and move on.