GM to Shut Ste. Therese

The long-rumored closing of General Motors’ automotive assembly plant in Ste. Thrse, QC has apparently come to fruition. The company announced it will suspend operations at the facility in September 2002. The closing will directly put 1,400 workers out of a job and also severely affect business for a number of Canadian molders supplying the plant.

The closing is a result of the phase out of GM’s Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro, and the inability of the company to identify replacement work at the plant. The facility was built in the mid-sixties and at its height in the nineties employed about 3,000 workers. Waning interest in the “muscle car” models produced at the plant reduced employment to current levels.

In a statement, General Motors of Canada Ltd.’s president Maureen Kempston Darkes said: “This is an extremely painful and difficult decision. GM worked very hard to identify a new product or other alternative to continue to manufacture at Ste. Thrse…However despite years of intensive work, we have been unable to identify any viable alternatives.”

Kempston Darkes said that GM will still do the largest amount of business in Quebec among all automakers, sourcing over $850 million annually from 750 Quebec suppliers, with less than 10 percent of this going to Ste. Thrse.

GM last closed a plant in Canada in 1993 when it shut down operations at its Scarborough, ON van plant.