Just two years ago, Stellantis was gearing up to build the new Jeep Compass at its plant in Brampton, Canada. Now the company is weighing whether to sell it instead. According to the Unifor union, the automaker notified it that a sale is seriously on the table. No final decision has been announced — but the notice itself says plenty.
The script for this plant flipped in just two years. After halting retooling, Stellantis officially pulled the Jeep Compass out of Brampton in October 2025 and handed it to the Belvidere plant in Illinois. More than $600 million is heading there, and starting in 2027 the site will build both the Compass and the Cherokee — a project promising roughly 3,300 new jobs. The Canadian plant simply didn't make the cut.
No replacement model has been publicly confirmed for Brampton. A deal with Chinese partner Leapmotor was floated at one point, but Unifor rejected it: in the union's view, that arrangement would have handed Canada far fewer manufacturing jobs than it needs.
Any potential buyer also faces an extra complication. In February 2026, Brampton's city council designated the plant's site at 2000 Williams Parkway specifically for vehicle assembly and related automotive manufacturing — protecting roughly 3,000 jobs at the plant itself and among suppliers. So a sale wouldn't automatically turn the site into ordinary real estate. The city has already built a wall against that scenario.
The next chapter hinges on talks between Stellantis and Unifor. Brampton Assembly falls within the scope of Auto Talks 2026, alongside Windsor Assembly and the automaker's other plants, and the current collective agreement expires September 20, 2026. That's where the uncertainty around Brampton should either turn into a concrete commitment — or get its final confirmation: the plant is being prepped for sale.
