Plant Chair Responds to CAMI Announcement

Wednesday, 22 October 2025 09:45

Photo Credit: CAMI Assembly page on GM Canada website, gm.ca

Mike Van Boekel has been meeting with representatives from GM and the different levels of government in hopes of finding a solution.

INGERSOLL - Angry, frustrated, and absolutely devastated.

Those were the words Mike Van Boekel used to describe his reaction the news that GM Canada has decided to discontinue the production of the BrightDrop electric delivery van at CAMI.

Van Boekel is the Plant Chair for Unifor Local 88 and the announcement caught him completely off guard.

"I never really thought that was going to happen and you always hope it never happens. I know sales were slow, but they've been working on different programs and they just put a pile of money into the plant for a whole new roof system."

About 1,200 unionized employees work for CAMI and they had been laid off since May. Van Boekel says about half of them were supposed to return to work for one shift as of November 17th.

"I know a lot of people were planning their finances and everything else around going back to work, when all of a sudden the rug got pulled out from under them."

Van Boekel met with representatives from GM and the different levels of government yesterday as they work towards a solution.

"We're going to be trying hard to try and get some kind of commitment over the next year or two so we can bring another vehicle in here and hopefully get a couple thousand people back to work."

He adds they're is not going down without a fight.

"It's a great plant and everything's tooled and everything's brand new. Like we did with the batteries, we took technology that was never seen in Canada before with really no playbook and we not only learned it, but we excelled. We became the number one battery plant inside of the year at GM and yet they're still closing us which I think is more politics than anything else."

In a statement released yesterday, Kristian Aquilina, the president and managing director of GM Canada, said the decision was based on market demand and in no way reflected the workforce at CAMI.