MPs ‘speechless’ after Stellantis fails to show up to hearing, citing technical issues

Members of Parliament from multiple parties slammed Stellantis on Tuesday for failing to show up to a committee hearing about the federal government’s multimillion-dollar funding deals with the global automaker.

“I am incredibly annoyed that Stellantis has not been able to join us,” said Vince Gasparro, the Liberal MP for Eglinton—Lawrence. “This is incredibly frustrating and […] at this point, unacceptable.” 

A company executive was scheduled to appear by videoconference before the House of Commons’ government operations and estimates committee on Tuesday morning. But that executive, Teresa Piruzza, never showed up over the course of the nearly two-hour public meeting. 

Committee chair Kelly McCauley said Stellantis was having technical problems. But he and other members of the panel cast some doubt on that explanation, saying the company did not appear pressed to resolve the issues.

In a statement to CBC Windsor on Tuesday, Stellantis said it “was ready and available to appear remotely for the Committee today,” but that IT issues prevented Piruzza, FCA Canada’s head of external affairs and public policy, from joining as planned. (FCA is a subsidiary of Stellantis.)

“Unfortunately, despite a successful test with the Committee’s IT team, and an appropriate log-in process, in accordance with the Committee’s instructions, Ms. Piruzza was not able to connect. The Committee’s IT team assisted directly but the issue was not resolved,” spokesperson Lou Ann Gosselin wrote.

But McCauley, the Conservative MP for Edmonton West, said it was “stupefying that they would not participate.”

Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, one of the vice-chairs of the committee, told McCauley she was “speechless” that Stellantis still hadn’t appeared more than an hour into the hearing.

“Because clearly, when you make electric vehicles, when you are on the cutting edge of technology, it’s unbelievable that you have internet issues,” said Gaudreau, the Bloc Québecois MP for Laurentides—Labelle, in French. 

The hearing was intended to allow parliamentarians to question both the federal government and Stellantis about the deals to give the company hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to help secure its presence in Canada — and maintain thousands of unionized jobs in Ontario. 

Those deals have been under a microscope since last month, when Stellantis announced it would move production of a Jeep model from its assembly plant in Brampton, Ont., to the U.S., creating more job uncertainty for the roughly 3,000 workers at the facility who were already laid off for re-tooling at the plant.

Top federal officials have accused Stellantis of violating the terms of its contracts, which they have insisted contain job protections, while the opposing Conservatives have grilled the Liberal government over whether the deals in fact contained any employment guarantees for Brampton. 

“We continue to work constructively with government partners and other stakeholders on a plan for Brampton to find viable solutions that build a sustainable, long-term future for automotive manufacturing in Canada,” Stellantis said in its statement. 

Amid the fallout, the committee requested unredacted copies of federal contracts related to the Brampton facility. On Tuesday, they said they had received copies of a contract, as well as an amendment, in response to that request. 

Members of the committee indicated the contract was a Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) deal from 2022. Stellantis inked such a deal that year for up to $529 million to upgrade its assembly plants in Brampton and Windsor, Ont. 

But the documents were redacted, sparking frustration from some of the panel’s members, who questioned why sections they considered key had been hidden, as well as the process through which the government handled the redactions.

Senior officials from the industry department said deals with the company contain confidentiality provisions to protect commercially sensitive information that could harm the business if competitors were made aware. Deputy minister Philip Jennings said Stellantis identified the sections to redact, and that the department was “comfortable” with those removals.

Some MPs also argued that there were inconsistencies between the redactions in the contract they had received and a similar $500 million SIF agreement for the NextStar Energy battery plant that CBC Windsor revealed last month. NextStar is a joint venture between Stellantis and LG Energy Solution.

CBC Windsor accessed that document, as well as a production subsidy deal for NextStar valued at up to $15 billion, through access to information law. 

Early on in the hearing, Jennings said the committee would need to move in-camera — meaning behind closed doors — to discuss the details of the retooling deal that members now had in hand. 

Kyle Seeback, the Conservative MP for Dufferin—Caledon, questioned Jennings on why they would need to do so, considering that the government had publicly released a full, redacted copy of the NextStar contract.

“It’s on the CBC website in a PDF, I was able to print it off with limited redactions, but you’re suggesting that this SIF agreement […] can only be reviewed by parliamentarians in-camera?” Seeback said. “So we have to wait until someone makes an access to information request to see it?”

Jennings maintained that the government must do its best to protect the company’s commercially sensitive information, and that he believed they had found a compromise that would satisfy the committee’s oversight needs. 

Members of the committee were not satisfied, though. They unanimously moved a motion to formally invite Stellantis to appear before the committee for at least one hour by next Thursday. If the company doesn’t comply, the committee agreed to issue a summons to force an appearance on Dec. 9.