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The head of the union local that represents workers at the General Motors CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont., says switching to a military vehicle is one of the options under discussion to keep the facility operating.
Speaking on CBC’s London Morning on Wednesday, Unifor Local 88 plant chair Mike Van Boekel said producing a military vehicle at the plant has been raised in recent discussions with GM and the federal government about securing the facility’s future.
“I know they’re looking at a potential military vehicle that could come into our plant,” Van Boekel told host Andrew Brown. “I think they’re trying to get an agreement with GM to put something in here.”
London Morning8:04Checking in on the future of Ingersoll’s CAMI plant
It was a tough year at GM’s CAMI plant, with ongoing layoffs, a production shutdown, and now a transition in union leadership. Unifor Local 88 Plant Chair Mike Van Boekel is retiring after a 35-year career with CAMI. Van Boekel joined London Morning to look back on his time there and discuss what he thinks is next for the Ingersoll plant.
Van Boekel said a military contract is one of a handful of options being examined to get the plant operating again.
However, he said, it would likely fall short of creating anything close to the number of shifts in place when the plant was producing the now-cancelled BrightDrop electric delivery vehicle.
“It wouldn’t get everybody back to work but it would get a couple hundred people working at least,” said Van Boekel. “For those families it’s good, it would leave the lights on and let us know that in the long term, there will be something coming out of the plant.”
Van Boekel said there are few details about what kind of vehicle would be produced at the plant.
“It’s pretty secretive,” he said. “It looks like there’s a market for it — we just need a green light from the government to go ahead and do it.”
Plant idle since spring this year
CBC News reached out to GM for comment and will update this story with any response from the company. CBC News also asked for comment from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, but had not received a response by Wednesday afternoon.
The plant, which employs 1,200 workers, has been idle since April of last year when GM paused production of the BrightDrop electric delivery vehicle. At the time the company said they planned to re-start in the fall at half capacity. However in October GM announced that production of the BrightDrop would stop altogether due to low market demand, throwing the plant’s future into doubt.
The plant and scores of businesses that support auto assembly are crucial to the local economy of Ingersoll, a town of just under 14,000 people located 40 kilometres east of London.
Millions in government funding invested
The federal and provincial governments invested more than $500 million in 2022 to support the plant to switch to building the BrightDrop. At the time, it was touted as an investment that would support the switch to electric vehicles and meet the need of last-mile delivery and e-commerce.
Prior to the BrightDrop, the plant produced the Chevy Equinox SUV.
So how likely is it that the plant could now transition again, this time to produce a military vehicle?
Heather Pilot is president of Pilot Hill Ltd., a company that puts on an annual defence industry conference in London.
She said that with Canada moving to increase defence spending and a changing relationship with the United States, new players are coming into the defence field.
“I noticed a convergence this year at my conference of companies that came from automotive, from critical minerals, oil and gas, mining, apart from the usual aerospace, defence and maritime defence components of the conference,” she said.
“‘Dual use’ is a term that’s being used frequently these days, from technologies to products that have application for defence,” she said. “And so a vehicle that can be equipped for military use could be of interest for sure. I don’t have any knowledge of that but it’s something they could be potentially looking at.”
