Automotive News Canada - October 2020 - v2 - 12

* OCTOBER 2020

Oakville's positive charge
CONTINUED FROM PA GE 1

future. The Trillium Network is
a nonprofit organization based
at Western University in London,
Ont., that advocates for advanced
manufacturing in the province.
"This could very well serve as
the catalyst" for Ontario emerging
as a major EV producer, Sweeney
said.
Navdeep Bains, the federal minister of innovation, science and
industry, said the Oakville plan
will spark investments throughout
the supply chain. He said Ottawa
would work with Canada's mining industry to "better connect"
it with the auto sector, potentially
spurring battery production.
"We want Canada to be a world
leader when it comes to the production of batteries and zero-emission vehicles in Canada," he said.
Rob Wildeboer, executive chairman of Martinrea International
Inc., said barring another global crisis, Ford's plan for Oakville
speaks positively about Canada's
ability to expand its auto-manufacturing footprint under the new
North American trade pact.
"There always could be something [negative] happening in 2030,
but people are always going to buy
cars. It's important to be competitive, and I think we've done some
good things" as a country, he said.

TIMING IS UNUSUAL

The plans offer some clarity over the future of Ford's sole
assembly plant in Canada, which
will continue to build the Edge and
the Lincoln Nautilus crossover
until 2023, when the company's
new contract with Unifor expires.
The timing of the Oakville
retooling is unusual, however.
Investments announced during
labour negotiations are typically undertaken during the life of a
new agreement, not a year after
the contract is scheduled to expire.
Assuming Unifor and Ford stick
with three-year contracts, the
union will have negotiated with
Ford two more times by the time
all five EVs are supposed to be rolling off the assembly line in 2027.
The plant will employ fewer

Uncertainty hovers
over future of
plant's workers
Ford has made no product announcements regarding what electric
vehicles will replace the Ford Edge and the Lincoln Nautilus beyond
2023 at the assembly plant in Oakville, Ont. Also, there is no
investment commitment during the life of the new contract, which
ends before any EV production begins. P H O T O : F O R D

people come 2027 than it does
today, according to Ford and
Unifor. About 3,000 workers would
be employed at the Oakville plant
by then, down from around 3,400
today, a figure that was already
reduced following rounds of job
cuts over the last year or so. The
union expects
the reduction in
head count to be
accounted for
entirely through
retirements.
Despite the
lengthy timeline for the Ford
Dziczek: All
investment, the
signs point
Oakville plant
to Ford living appears to be on
up to its
solid ground, said
commitment
Kristin Dziczek,
to invest
vice-president of
in EV
industry, labour
production
and economin Oakville.
ics at the Center
FILE PHOTO
for Automotive
Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. The
new-vehicle market will likely be
on an upswing by 2024, making
Ford's investment viable.
"This is amazingly good news,
and the fact that the government is
up to bat for the industry and for
this investment is very strong,"
she said.

FUTURE 'LOCKED IN'

The Ford Oakville contract is for
new product, which contrasts
the 2016 deal with General
Motors at Oshawa Assembly that
was for "a product that was a
shuttle," said Unifor President
Jerry Dias. GM closed Oshawa
at the end of 2019, which has
created worry about the Oakville
plant as it's Ford's only vehicle
assembly facility in Canada.
FILE PHOTO

Unifor President Jerry Dias
contrasted the Oakville plans
favorably to the deal his union
negotiated with General Motors
in 2016. That contract included an
investment in GM's Oshawa, Ont.,
assembly facility for final assembly on pickup bodies shipped from
the United States.
At the time, union leaders
hailed the plans as a lifesaver for
the storied plant. But after two
years of pickup production, vehicle assembly ended in December
2019. The Oshawa factory is now
used for a much smaller aftermarket-parts operation.
"We negotiated a product that
was a shuttle" in Oshawa in 2016,
Dias said. "This is not a shuttle [in
Oakville]. This is not just one vehicle. It's five [EV] models. ...We've
locked in the future in this agreement."
Dziczek cited a letter from Ford

to Unifor detailing its plans for
Oakville, noting it does not include
language stipulating that such an
investment would be "contingent
on business and market case,"
as contracts sometimes do if a
planned investment is not a surefire thing. Instead, Ford only stipulated the need for government support and "competitive operational practices," which the company
feels it received in the contract.
A request for comment from
Ford Canada CEO Dean Stoneley
was declined, but in a statement
issued after the union's ratification vote, he said that by introducing battery-electric vehicle production in Oakville, "we are cementing our Canadian operations as
a leader in advanced automotive
manufacturing."

WHAT EVs, THOUGH?

Dias said at least one of the
models in Oakville would be a
crossover and that there were
plans for two-door
and four-door
vehicles, though
details were not
disclosed. Dias
said he expected
about 200,000 vehicles a year to be
built in Oakville
Fiorani: It
by 2027.
would make
Sam Fiorani,
sense if two
an analyst
of the five
at U.S.-based
Ford EVs
AutoForecast
were Lincoln Solutions LLC,
models.
said those EVs
FILE PHOTO
could be similar in
size to the midsize
Edge. He also said it would make
sense if two of the five models
were Lincoln-branded variations
of a Ford EV built there, and a
higher-end Lincoln specialty vehicle also was possible.
"If you're going to build it in
Canada, you're going to want it
to be higher end and a little more
expensive than the ones you're
building in Mexico, especially
when EVs are not making money
at the moment."
Still, worldwide, Ford is investing heavily in electric vehicles,
planning to invest $14.6 billion by
2022 to electrify its lineup, including rolling out 16 EVs. - ANC

The end of the Edge and the
Nautilus means 400 fewer
jobs and a grey area during
the transition to building
unknown electrics
By JOHN IRWIN

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CANADA

A LONG SWITCHOVER TO ELECTRIC
vehicles in Oakville puts a question mark on
what will happen to employees during that
period. Ford expects to employ about 3,000
workers at the factory by 2027, down from
3,400 today.
Unifor President Jerry Dias said he expects
retirements to account for the difference.
What remains unclear is whether the
remaining 3,000 employs will be on layoff for
the 18- to 24-month period between the end
of current production of the Ford Edge and
the Lincoln Nautilus and the beginning of EV
assembly. That question is sure to be a key
issue during contract negotiations between
Ford and Unifor in 2023.
Ford will offer retirement packages of
$40,000 for up to 350 employees, including 20
skilled-trades workers, by early 2021 across its
unionized locations in Canada. Ford will also
make retirement packages of $60,000 ($70,000
for skilled-trades workers) available in the
event of "indefinite layoffs that will not result
in recall." The latter packages also include a
$20,000 voucher for a new vehicle.
Ford will phase out production of the
Edge as it launches a slew of utility vehicles.
It recently unveiled the Bronco utility vehicle and Bronco Sport crossover, and the new
Mustang Mach-E crossover is expected to
make its debut in the coming months.
Ford produced 165,003 Edge vehicles at
the Oakville plant in 2019, along with 55,458
Nautilus crossovers and about 27,000 Ford
Flex and Lincoln MKT vehicles, production of
which has ended. Dias told Automotive News
Canada that he expects the new EV operation
to build about 200,000 vehicles annually by
2027. - ANC

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Ford is expected to cease assembly of the Ford
Edge just as the new three-year deal expires
in 2023. P H O T O : F O R D

Automotive News Canada - October 2020 - v2

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