A Ford truck leaves the company's Oakville, Ont., assembly plant in the summer of 2024.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
The federal government is giving $464.5-million to Ford Motor Co. F-N to refit the automaker’s plant in Oakville, Ont., to make heavy-duty pickup trucks.
The factory west of Toronto, which has been closed for retooling since 2024, will employ 1,800 people when it fully reopens later this year.
The government grant is effective March 30, 2026. It will help Ford produce 100,000 trucks annually and build a metal stamping facility by 2029, according to an online notice posted by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.
The grant was first reported by The Logic.
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The plant used to make the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus, but it closed for retooling as part of Ford’s $1.8-billion plan to make electric vehicles. About 3,000 people were laid off.
The Ontario and federal government were to contribute $295-million apiece to the EV transformation.
But as the growth in EV sales slowed, Ford scrapped the EV plan and said it would instead spend US$2.3-billion to make Super Duty gas or diesel powered trucks – the F-250, F-350 and F-450 – in Oakville. The trucks are highly profitable and in great demand in the United States.
Ford produced its first six Super Duty trucks at Oakville in April, according to the company’s latest sales news release.
Spokespeople for Industry Minister Mélanie Joly did not respond to requests for comment.
Ford spokeswoman Rosemarie Pao said the company’s investment in Canadian Super Duty production totals almost $5-billion. “We’ve been a major part of Canada’s industrial landscape for nearly 122 years – investing in our facilities, supporting our workers and building for the long term,” she said by e-mail.
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Representatives of Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli did not respond to e-mailed questions about the province’s possible contribution to Ford.
Rob Burton, Oakville’s mayor, welcomed news of the grant as a sign the plant that first opened in 1953 would remain. He said he was “happy and impressed” with Ford’s investment that will give new life to the assembly plant and retain the employment.
“I like Ford’s business strategy – to base the comeback of this assembly plant on the Super Duty model’s worldwide demand,” Mr. Burton said by phone.
The Canadian auto sector is under attack by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has imposed 25-per-cent tariffs on the non-U.S. content of Canadian-made cars since April, 2025.
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General Motors has shifted some pickup truck production to the United States and cut 700 jobs in Oshawa, Ont., while Stellantis moved planned output of Jeeps to Illinois and left idle its factory in Brampton, Ont.
Production at Ontario’s auto plants was declining even before the tariffs were put in place.
Output fell to 1.2 million vehicles in 2025 from 2.3 million in 2016, driven by a plunge at factories owned by Ford, GM and Stellantis, according to Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing, a think tank based at Western University in London, Ont.