Prime Minister Mark Carney said automaker Stellantis shuttering its plant in Brampton, Ont., is a betrayal to the country and all Canadians.

“The situation in the Brampton plant is unacceptable,” Carney said in Montreal on Tuesday.

“It violates the obligations that Stellantis has under several agreements, but to be more fundamental, it’s a betrayal of the workers as it is a betrayal of the obligations to Canada and by extension to all Canadians.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre blames the Liberal government for failing to prevent the closure and called on Carney to fire Industry Minister Mélanie Joly for her handling of the file.

“The Liberal strategy has failed to save jobs from Stellantis to Stelco,” Poilievre said outside the idled auto assembly plant in Brampton earlier on Tuesday. “In both cases the Liberals promised they would get the jobs back.”

“Today the Official Opposition is calling for the Liberal prime minister to fire his failed, costly, job-killing Liberal industry minister.”

Stelco is owned by Cleveland-Cliffs, the U.S. company that said in September it plans to lay off hundreds of Ontario steelworkers despite promising to keep the number of unionized workers at 2024 levels for three more years.

Canadian steel and autos are both subject tariffs enacted by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Standing next to Joly, Carney said his industry minister is doing “an exceptional job in very difficult circumstances,” and she will continue to “fight for these workers.”

“The issue is not the exceptional work of Minister of Industry Joly and her colleagues, it is the behaviour of the company versus those workers,” Carney said.

Joly said that her office has been engaging with Stellantis and Unifor, the private sector union representing the workers at the Brampton plant, for more than a year to try and come to a solution to no avail. 

“Stellantis has decided to go ahead and violate its contract and so that is why we will … use the full force of the law to make sure that we protect jobs but also bring back justice to these workers,” she said.