On October 14, 2025, Stellantis announced that production of the Jeep Compass — originally slated for its “Brampton Assembly Plant” in Ontario — will be shifted to a U.S. facility in Illinois. The company backed that with a sweeping US$13 billion investment over four years to expand U.S. manufacturing capacity by 50 percent.

That move imperiled about 3,000 Canadian auto-assembly jobs at Brampton, where workers had already been idle since early 2024 while the plant was being retooled. The suspension of activity came just months after the plant had shut down for modernization — a shutdown that had been presented as temporary.

This comes after a major retooling effort at the Brampton facility, part of a broader push to pivot toward electric and hybrid-vehicle production in Canada. Under that plan, the factory was to be upgraded with a flexible assembly line capable of building battery-electric and hybrid vehicles, supported by public funds to turn the plant into an EV manufacturing hub.

The financial backing behind that retooling was substantial. The federal government plus provincial authorities pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize the Brampton and neighbouring plants — under a 2022 deal promising up to C$529 million from Ottawa. By late 2025, newly released records show that Ottawa alone paid over C$220 million toward those upgrades. Provincial contributions and industry-side investments pushed the total publicly committed sum even higher.

Since Carney took office, the flow of capital and corporate presence out of Canada has accelerated in ways that now belie the promises of safeguarding domestic industry. According to recent data, Canadian investors moved roughly US $124 billion into American securities between February and July 2025 alone — a dramatic showing of lost confidence from Canadian capital in Canada’s economic prospects. Meanwhile, overall foreign direct investment into Canada has dropped sharply, with the latest quarter’s inflows falling to the lowest level in roughly a year and a half.

At the same time, industrial investment inside Canada has cratered: real spending on machinery and equipment — the backbone of manufacturing capacity — hit its lowest level on record in Q2 2025. That collapse in investment helps explain why firms like Stellantis, despite prior commitments to retool Canadian plants, are now pulling production and capital out of the country.

For Canadians who voted for Carney believing he could protect jobs, stabilize investment and shield Canada from U.S.-driven trade pressures — this exodus, this capital flight and this industrial decline amount to a betrayal. The promises of a secure future for Canadian manufacturing and a vibrant industrial base have been undercut by facts: firms are leaving, capital is fleeing and reinvestment is evaporating.