Toronto, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the Trudeau government to reject Stellantis’s demands for even more corporate welfare. The company is now seeking payments in line with subsidies the federal government gave Volkswagen.

“If you hand out billions of dollars in taxpayer cash to one auto company, of course the others will follow,” said CTF Ontario Director Jay Goldberg. “Taxpayers can’t afford to throw money at every company under the sun and Ottawa needs to say no before it wastes billions more.”

Last month, the Trudeau government announced it was handing Volkswagen $13.5 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies to build a new electric car vehicle battery plant. Stellantis, the parent company for Chrysler, Jeep and Fiat, already received $1 billion in subsidies from the Ontario and federal governments in 2022. After the Volkswagen announcement, Stellantis is demanding more.  

In light of Stellantis’s demands, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is calling on the federal government to give the automaker more taxpayer cash and isn’t ruling out more money from the province.   

“Ford is wrong to be pushing to give Stellantis even more money,” said Goldberg. “Both governments need to end their addition to corporate welfare.

“If governments want to support business, they should cut corporate taxes to save money for the locally owned corner store and not just multi-national corporations.”