Stellantis will invest $13B in U.S., praises Trump administration

Electric vehicle manufacturer Stellantis announced plans to invest $13 billion in the United States, nearly the total amount the Liberals provided the company in taxpayer funds.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Electric vehicle manufacturer Stellantis announced plans to invest $13 billion in the United States, nearly the total amount the Liberals provided the company in taxpayer funds not long before it shut down operations in Ontario to move south of the border.

Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa made the announcement alongside U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House Oval Office on Wednesday, while showering him with compliments on the job he’s done thus far.

“Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a great day for us at Stellantis today because we see regulations reconciled with customers’ demands,” said Filosa. “That’s why at Stellantis we decided to invest through Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler – $13 billion in the next four years. Increasing production by 50 per cent, delivering to the market five new vehicles and creating 5,000 additional jobs.”

Filosa went on to say that Stellantis believed in how the Trump administration was operating, and that the company had plans to “invest even more” in the future.

“We believe in growth,” he said.

Ottawa and the Ontario government gave the company $15 billion in taxpayer subsidies under former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government.

According to a Stellantis press release, the $13 billion marks the “largest single investment in the Company’s 100-year history, which benefits all U.S. assembly plants.”

News of the company’s multi-billion-dollar investment comes only days after

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said it was time to “stop whining” about the taxpayer money that her government gave to the EV manufacturer.

Ottawa began a formal dispute resolution process against the automaker in October after it relocated Jeep Compass production from Brampton, Ont., to Illinois, resulting in the loss of approximately 3,000 Canadian jobs.

While Joly was supposed to appear at the Commons’ government operations committee last week to explain why there weren’t provisions in the Stellantis contract to ensure that Canadian jobs would be protected, she did not show.

Instead, Joly sent Deputy Industry Minister Philip Jennings in her place, who testified that he hadn’t ever read the “fully unredacted version” of the contract.

“We have sort of a new minister who was not involved in the negotiations. There is no need for her to see the entire contract. We brief her as needed in terms of some elements of the contract,” said Jennings.

“It is a contract between the Department of Industry and the company,” said Jennings. “At the end of the day, the contractual obligation is to the department.”

However, Joly testified before the committee last month, claiming she did have knowledge of the contract and that Parliament would “be able to see it when we will be producing it.”

“Just look at the contracts,” she said on November 3. “Then you will be informed.”

When presented, however, the contract was heavily redacted.

“Apparently, nobody in this government bothered to read the Stellantis contract,” said Conservative MP Kelly McCauley on Monday.

“The minister of industry did not read it. The deputy minister of industry and the past deputy minister for industry did not read it. Finance Canada lawyers did not read it. They all pointed their fingers at the former industry minister, who is, of course, the finance minister now. So, before giving billions in taxpayers’ dollars to jobs now fleeing to the U.S., did the finance minister read the contracts?”

Joly responded by saying that “the entire team read it” before blaming former prime minister Stephen Harper for “bailing out GM and Chrysler” in 2009.

“We saw that there was no jobs protection in that deal,” said Joly. “So you know what we’ll do now? We’ll make sure we fight for these jobs. We will make sure that we put maximum pressure and they should stop just whining and get on board.”