General Motors said on Tuesday that it was ending production of its electric van in Ontario, a move that will mean the loss of about 1,200 jobs. It was the second major blow to Canada’s automobile industry in less than a week.
G.M. cited low demand for its BrightDrop delivery van, as well as the end of tax credits for electric vehicles in the United States.
But Unifor, the Canadian union that represents auto workers, blamed the company’s move on President Trump’s trade battle with Canada, which has made exporting cars to the United States more expensive.
Last week, the automaker Stellantis announced that it would move production of a new Jeep model from an idle factory in the Toronto suburb of Brampton to a plant in Illinois. The company shut down the factory in 2023 and laid off its roughly 3,000 workers so that it could retool the facilities, but now the fate of those employees is unclear.
General Motors previously announced that it would eliminate a shift at a pickup factory in Oshawa, Ontario, a decision that will lead to a loss of about 2,000 jobs in that community.
The company’s decision on Tuesday involves a factory in Ingersoll, Ontario, that began building electric delivery vans in 2022, after G.M. received about 1 billion Canadian dollars, about $714 million currently, from the Canadian and Ontario governments to retool the site. It was temporarily shut down in May because of slow sales but was expected to restart production in November.
Lana Payne, the national president of Unifor, said the shutdown was a direct result of Mr. Trump’s decision to end support for the electric vehicle industry and the 25 percent tariff he imposed on cars and trucks from Canada.
“Now more than 1,000 workers and their families are paying the price for Trump’s political interference and G.M.’s failure to hold the line,” Ms. Payne said.
Mary Barra, in a conference call with investors on Tuesday, said that “the commercial electric van market has been developing much slower than expected.” BrightDrop is the only fully electric commercial van offered by G.M.
G.M. did not provide any specifics about the factory’s future, saying it would meet with the union and government officials to discuss the situation.
Mélanie Joly, Canada’s industry minister, offered a more measured response to G.M.’s announcement on Tuesday than last week, when she threated legal action against Stellantis.
“It’s two completely different situations,” she said on Tuesday. The government, she said, is putting “maximum pressure” on Stellantis to keep the new Jeep in Canada because of the “obligation” it took on after accepting government money to retool the Brampton plant. By contrast, she said, G.M. is eliminating its van because it is “not going well commercially.”
Ms. Joly said, nevertheless, that the government would seek to reopen the factory with another vehicle and that it would hold G.M. accountable for any remaining obligations from earlier government assistance.
Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times. A Windsor, Ontario, native now based in Ottawa, he has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].
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