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The largest automotive employer in southwestern Ontario doubled down on its commitment to its Canadian workforce on Friday, despite uncertainty across other parts of the auto industry.
Toyota Canada reaffirmed that commitment at a factory tour of its Woodstock, Ont. plant where the production of the sixth generation of RAV4 SUVs is underway.
“This is a significant demonstration of Toyota’s confidence in our people, our plants, and our manufacturing ecosystem,“ Tim Hollander, the president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC), said.
“It also reflects our long-term commitment to Canada and the communities where we operate.”
The first sixth-generation RAV4 to roll off the line in Toyota’s Woodstock plant. (Alessio Donnini/CBC News)
The company has an almost 40 year history in Canada with plants in Woodstock and Cambridge employing roughly 8,500 people. The company says its southwestern Ontario operation produces the most vehicles on the continent.
The investment has continued, despite 2025 being a devastating year elsewhere in Ontario’s auto industry. Hundreds of jobs were lost following the closure of General Motors’s CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, and 3,000 others have been laid off at Stellantis’ Brampton plant where a vehicle hasn’t been produced in two years.
In June, Toyota reconfigured the Woodstock and Cambridge plants so that battery packs for the new RAV4s could be built in-house, instead of in Japan.
The vehicle, exclusively available as an electric hybrid, is completely redesigned from the ground-up, according to Hollander, who said Toyota invested $1.1 billion to produce it in Canada.
According to company officials, Toyota has invested a total of more than $12 billion in its Canadian operations, and there are no plans to cut back.
But for auto workers looking for jobs, the company said it is not expanding.
A partially assembled Toyota RAV4 at the company’s Woodstock Plant. (Alessio Donnini/CBC News)
The issues of Canada-U.S. trade talks, Chinese EVs
Liberal MP Kareem Bardeesy, who serves as parliamentary secretary to Industry Minister Melanie Joly, was in attendance Friday. Minister Joly has said she is working on a plan for the CAMI plant and is in support of autoworkers.
Bardeesy said that while Canada must adapt to new realities, it must also do what it can to secure existing partnerships, an echo from the Prime Minister’s speech at Davos earlier in the week.
“This plant and the ecosystem and consumers and team members who are part of that, integrated between Canada, the United States, Japan and elsewhere, is an example of that integration,” Bardeesy said.
Upcoming CUSMA tade talks remain a concern, said Scott MacKenzie, Toyota Canada’s director of corporate and external affairs.
When asked if the continued production of RAV4 SUVs in Ontario hinges on a favourable agreement, MacKenzie refused to speculate.
“I don’t think we know where that’s going to end up, but we’ll make those decisions once the details are more clear,” he said. “We believe that the most effective way for the North American industry to operate is integrated with all three countries participating. I think the best situation is no tariffs.”
Scott MacKenzie, photographed on Friday at Toyota’s Woodstock plant. (Alessio Donnini/CBC News)
The Prime Minster’s decision to allow 49,000 of the vehicles into the market annually has been panned by Ontario Premier Doug Ford and some auto industry leaders as potentially damaging for the Canadian sector.
“I think the federal government was in a difficult spot between two large economies, and trying to manage that situation effectively,” MacKenzie said. “I don’t think it’s of huge significance here and I don’t think it’s going to affect our operations here in Canada.”
“[This is] a continued vote of confidence in our Canadian workforce, in our Canadian operations,” he said.
