Roshel Production Surge: How to Access Defense Jobs in Canada

In mid-November 2026, Canadian armoured vehicle manufacturer Roshel signed an asset purchase agreement for Stellantis’s idled 2.95-million-square-foot Brampton Assembly Plant. The deal ended months of speculation over the empty car factory and signaled a major shift across Southern Ontario’s industrial base. For decades, workers in Brampton, Oakville, and Oshawa built sedans, minivans, and pickup trucks for North American families. Today, geopolitical demand and export orders for combat-tested vehicles like the Senator APC and Senator MRAP have turned tactical vehicle manufacturing into one of the fastest-growing heavy industry sectors in the country.

For anyone with years on an automotive line, or machinists, technicians, and design engineers wondering where steady manufacturing work will come from next, Canadian defense jobs have quickly moved to the front of the conversation. The Brampton footprint gives an idea of the scale: 269 acres and nearly 3 million square feet of plant space, originally built to produce hundreds of thousands of passenger vehicles a year, now being converted into a domestic centre of excellence for defense manufacturing.

Moving into defense production requires a clear adjustment from standard auto work. Tactical vehicles demand tight ballistic tolerances, strict military standards (like NATO STANAG), and federal security statutes that commercial plants never had to deal with. If you are weighing whether this shift makes sense for your career, you need the practical details: what is happening on the ground, which roles are hiring immediately, how your commercial production skills transfer, and how to clear the federal compliance hurdles to get onto the factory floor.

The Brampton Shift: Why Defense Manufacturing Is Filling the Auto Void

Mid-November 2026 brought plenty of heated headlines about the Brampton Assembly Plant. When Stellantis idled the facility in late 2023, more than 2,000 autoworkers went on layoff pay to wait for electric and hybrid tooling that never showed up. Cross-border tariff disputes flared up instead, and Stellantis shifted its planned vehicle lines south of the border, leaving the massive plant sitting dark.

Roshel stepped in soon after. Headquartered right in Brampton, the company grew from a specialized builder of security vehicles into a defense exporter turning out up to 16 tactical armoured vehicles every day. Surging international orders, including thousands of Senator vehicles sent to Ukraine, paired with fresh procurement contracts from allied nations and Canada’s Department of National Defence. Roshel simply ran out of room across its existing local facilities.

Buying the Brampton site marks a noticeable change in direction. Where Ontario once depended almost entirely on foreign commercial automakers whose capital budgets shift with trade politics, governments at both levels are backing domestic capacity. Roshel CEO Roman Shimonov described the acquisition as a long-term build-out of sovereign ability. Keeping heavy armoured steel cutting, fabrication, and vehicle assembly inside Ontario safeguards domestic industrial capacity, though pivoting an auto plant toward defense contracts creates serious disruption for organized labour.

Selling the Brampton Assembly Plant to a defence contractor is a significant step backwards for Canada’s industrial economy. Over and above the thousands of high-paying jobs that will be lost at Stellantis, Canada will also lose thousands more in its auto parts supplier base.

Source: Unifor, Sale of Brampton Assembly Plant a betrayal by Stellantis

Unifor National President Lana Payne voiced the frustration felt by union members who spent years assembling passenger cars and counted on a tier-one automaker to honour its collective agreements. Her position points straight to the reality facing thousands of displaced line workers: a defense plant runs on completely different collective bargaining terms, staffing models, and supply chains than an automotive assembly line under the Big Three.

Anyone following the Brampton assembly plant sale knows that Roshel will not recall 2,200 autoworkers right away on matching wages and pensions. The company has stated it intends to prioritize hiring laid-off Brampton workers, but the ramp-up will happen in stages. For workers weighing their options, the broader picture is straightforward: defense work is expanding while traditional passenger manufacturing faces serious headwinds.

CTV News covered the initial sale announcement and detailed Roshel’s operational plans for the facility:

Taking advantage of these openings starts with knowing what the floor builds, and where tactical vehicle manufacturing diverges from a typical passenger car line.

How Defense Manufacturing Postings Differ from Commercial Auto

On the surface, assembling an armoured troop carrier looks surprisingly like putting together a heavy-duty commercial truck. Roshel builds its core platforms, including the Senator APC and Senator MRAP, around standard commercial truck chassis, specifically Ford F-550 heavy-duty platforms. Newer models like the Captain use Ford Ranger Super Duty architectures. The engines, basic transmission components, and baseline running gear share their lineage with the trucks you see on an Ontario construction site or in a commercial fleet yard.

The resemblance ends once you step onto the floor. Consumer automotive manufacturing runs on high-volume automation. Giant robotic cells stamp thin-gauge sheet metal, spot-weld body shells in seconds, and paint frames along conveyor lines that move dozens of units every hour. Workers on those lines typically repeat single, hyper-specialized tasks inside rigid ninety-second cycle times.

Tactical vehicle production is much closer to precision fabrication and custom mechanical upfitting. As JointWerks pointed out, precision counts double here, alongside thorough documentation, part traceability, and adaptable assembly skills. Spot welds on thin galvanized sheet give way to heavy ballistic armour plate, multi-pass MIG and TIG welds, blast-resistant floor assemblies, composite spall liners, and complex secondary wiring harnesses.

The physical assembly work reflects that difference. Technicians mount ballistic glass that weighs tens of kilograms per window pane and route wiring for thermal imaging cameras, drone-jamming masts, and electronic countermeasure packages. They torque grade-8 suspension bolts to exact military tolerances, knowing that if a component fails, it happens under live fire or across unpaved combat tracks, far from the shoulder of Highway 401.

All of this changes what hiring managers look for on a resume. Defense manufacturers need workers who can read complex mechanical blueprints, handle multi-stage assemblies on their own, and adapt to regular design changes. If an allied security agency or an army in Eastern Europe reports that mine threats have shifted from fragmentation to shaped charges, a defense facility can rework a hull design within two weeks. A traditional consumer auto plant can easily spend two years just modifying a dashboard clip.

The Shop-Floor Roles in Immediate Demand

As Roshel and other Canadian defense suppliers expand operations across Ontario, hiring managers are focusing their recruiting efforts on skilled trades and floor operators. Tactical vehicle production lines rely primarily on a handful of specialized roles.

CWB-Certified Welders and Metal Fabricators

Welders carrying a Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) ticket and experienced metal fabricators are seeing heavy demand in defense manufacturing. Armored vehicle production depends heavily on high-hardness ballistic steel plate, including Armox, Hardox, and Ramor steels.

Ballistic steel requires strict heat control. Too much heat strips the plate of its heat-treated ballistic rating, and poor penetration risks structural failure under explosive blast pressure. Plant supervisors want welders certified in GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding) and FCAW (Flux-Cored Arc Welding) who understand pre-heat temperature management, know how to control warpage on heavy plate, and can run clean multi-pass fillet and groove welds.

If your background involves welding structural steel on construction projects or fabricating pressure vessels, that experience translates directly into tactical vehicle assembly. Focus your resume on blueprint reading, weld inspection protocols, and work with heavy overhead cranes or positioning fixtures.

Mechanical Assemblers and Upfit Technicians

On a tactical vehicle line, mechanical assemblers work on heavy structural and mechanical subassemblies. You will spend your shifts mounting reinforced axles, heavy-duty leaf springs, high-capacity steering linkages, run-flat wheel inserts, ballistic doors, blast mitigation seating, and escape hatches.

Plants look for assemblers who are comfortable with pneumatic and hydraulic tools, precise torque specs, and alignment checks. You are working with heavy, awkward components in tight physical envelopes. If you have experience as an automotive prep mechanic, an agricultural equipment technician, or an aftermarket vehicle modifier, you will recognize the mechanical principles, though the physical demands are heavier than standard consumer assembly lines.

Material handling keeps these stations moving. A skilled material handler or forklift operator who knows how to transport multi-ton armored hulls and pallets of fragile ballistic glass through crowded bays is just as necessary to the line as the technicians turning wrenches.

CNC Machinists and Toolmakers

Armored vehicle hulls require custom brackets, gun-ring turrets, heavy hinge assemblies, and specialized mounting hardware that cannot be bought off the shelf. Canadian defense plants rely on banks of multi-axis CNC milling and turning machines alongside high-definition CNC plasma, laser, and waterjet cutting tables to produce these components.

Shops need machinists who can program, set up, and operate CNC equipment while holding tight tolerances in tough, abrasion-resistant alloys. If you have spent time cutting quenched and tempered steel plates while managing thermal distortion and tool wear, put that experience front and centre in your application.

Electrical and Harness Technicians

A tactical vehicle functions as a mobile computer network. While base commercial truck chassis arrive with standard factory wiring, upfit technicians must integrate independent auxiliary power units, heavy-duty alternators, black-out lighting systems, multi-channel tactical radios, infrared cameras, and counter-drone jamming antennas.

Defense employers frequently recruit automotive electricians and 310S/310T apprentices. You will build custom wiring harnesses, crimp mil-spec Deutsch connectors, route cables through weather-sealed pass-throughs in armored bulkheads, and troubleshoot complex 12V and 24V DC systems. If you can read an electrical schematic and track down intermittent ground faults with a multimeter under production deadlines, your resume will stand out quickly.

Quality Control and Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Inspectors

In commercial auto plants, defects usually end in a recall notice. In tactical defense manufacturing, a flaw can cost lives, which is why quality assurance teams hold substantial authority on the plant floor.

Inspectors audit incoming ballistic steel certifications, run magnetic particle or ultrasonic non-destructive testing across critical chassis welds, review bolt torque logs, and conduct thorough water-tightness and road tests. Candidates certified through the Canadian Institute for Non-Destructive Testing (CINDE) or with auditing experience under ISO 9001/AS9100 can step into stable, well-compensated quality assurance positions across the sector.

Engineering, Tech, and Systems Integration Careers

The assembly floor is only part of the hiring push. Roshel’s expansion into the Brampton facility and its bid for Canadian defense contracts, including the multi-billion-dollar Light Utility Vehicle fleet replacement program, requires a deep bench of engineering and tech talent. Canada has plenty of technical expertise, but defense systems integration demands bridging commercial automotive engineering with military architecture.

Mechanical and Automotive Systems Engineers

Design work in this sector focuses on blast survivability, ballistic deflection, and centre-of-gravity stability. Bolting ten thousand pounds of armour plate onto a commercial chassis completely alters suspension dynamics, braking distances, and roll-over risks.

Teams look for engineers with strong backgrounds in Finite Element Analysis (FEA), vehicle dynamics modelling, and CAD software such as SolidWorks, Siemens NX, or CATIA. Plants need people who can calculate blast dissipation angles, simulate stress on chassis rails during cross-country driving, and develop modular mounting systems. The goal is hardware that lets a crew convert a truck between an ambulance configuration, a troop transport, and a mobile drone detection unit in an afternoon.

Electrical Engineering Technologists and Embedded Developers

Tactical armoured vehicles now function as mobile edge-computing platforms. Current builds integrate Remote Controlled Weapon Stations (RCWS), acoustic gunshot detection sensors, radar, and software-defined counter-UAS (uncrewed aerial system) jammers.

Companies hire electrical engineering technologists and embedded software engineers to build reliable interfaces between commercial vehicle CAN buses and military electronics. If you have spent time programming microcontrollers, piping sensor feeds into ruggedized touchscreens, or designing electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding to protect sensitive communication gear, your experience translates directly.

Supply Chain and Defense Procurement Specialists

Assembling an armoured vehicle requires hundreds of specialized parts from vetted vendors: certified ballistic glass from European glass specialists, military-grade run-flats, heavy winches, specialized gun ports, and commercial Ford cab-chassis units.

Traceability is everything in defense procurement. A buyer cannot simply order cheaper bolts from an unverified overseas supplier; every critical component needs certificates of conformance, country-of-origin documentation, and material test reports. If you have managed complex bills of materials (BOM) in automotive manufacturing or aerospace, defense procurement teams want that background to help keep lines moving through global supply crunches.

Translating Automotive Skills: A Guide for Displaced Autoworkers

If you are dealing with plant cutbacks and trade fallout, as covered in our look at how US tariffs threaten Canadian manufacturing jobs, you already have years of solid shop-floor instincts. You understand takt times, heavy machinery safety, and plant-floor collaboration.

The trouble is that typical automotive resumes sell that experience short. On a commercial vehicle line, your job title was likely just “Production Associate” or “Assembler.” To an outside hiring manager, that could mean dropping floor mats into trunks or tending a windshield sealant robot.

To win defense jobs in Canada, your resume must emphasize mechanical autonomy, tool proficiency, and quality verification. Review our tutorial on how to showcase transferable skills on a resume for structural framing, but apply these specific phrasing shifts:

Reframe Speed as Precision and Tolerance Adherence

Automotive plants reward pure speed. Pushing 60 units through a station in an hour is an achievement on a car line, but in defense manufacturing, turning out 60 units an hour usually means somebody skipped an inspection. Managers in this sector care far more about zero-defect execution than a ninety-second cycle time.

• Instead of: “Assembled passenger vehicle components on rapid line meeting 100% of shift output targets.”
• Write: “Conducted complex mechanical assembly of chassis and suspension components, adhering strictly to engineering drawings, digital torque logging, and quality sign-off gates.”

Spotlight Blueprint Reading and Manual Tool Competence

Passenger car assembly leans heavily on automated tools and vision systems to catch errors. Defense manufacturing relies on manual verification.

• Instead of: “Operated automated assembly tools on door station.”
• Write: “Interpreted mechanical schematics and assembly drawings to fit heavy structural assemblies, utilizing calibrated pneumatic wrenches, dial indicators, and precision alignment jigs.”

Highlight Material Handling and Heavy Fabrication

If you worked in body-in-white (BIW), stamping, or metal repair, name the exact metals you handled.

• Instead of: “Worked in body shop repairing sheet metal panels.”
• Write: “Fabricated, fitted, and prepared heavy-gauge steel assemblies for weld stations; inspected seams for alignment, burrs, and dimensional tolerances prior to paint.”

Candidates who pair shop experience with military service have an even stronger case to make. Our guide on how to translate military experience on a resume covers how to present technical and field operations to civilian defense employers without getting buried in military jargon.

If you want an experienced set of eyes to make sure your technical wording lands well with hiring teams, you can also have your documents reviewed through a professional resume assessment.

The Security Clearance Hurdle: What Candidates Must Know

Building tactical vehicles brings an operational requirement you never encounter on a commercial auto line: federal security screening. You cannot pick up a wrench on an armoured vehicle or open its digital CAD files until the paperwork clears. Plenty of qualified candidates apply for defense roles and get turned down, or find their start dates pushed back by months, simply because they do not know how security checks work.

In Canada, defense manufacturing facilities and their workers fall under two distinct systems: the Controlled Goods Program (CGP) and Government of Canada Personnel Security Screening, which is managed through Public Services and Procurement Canada’s Contract Security Program.

1. The Controlled Goods Program (CGP)

Administered by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) under the Defence Production Act, the Controlled Goods Program regulates domestic industrial security. Controlled goods include military equipment, tactical vehicles, military software, and critical technical data, such as vehicle blueprints, CAD files, and armor ballistic specifications. Under Canadian law, examining, holding, or transferring any of these assets without registration or an exemption is illegal.

When an employer like Roshel, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, or Rheinmetall Canada hires you, you will undergo a CGP security assessment handled by their internal Designated Official (DO). You need to provide:

• A comprehensive 5-year personal history covering every residential address, job, and educational program.
• Disclosure of all international travel outside Canada and the United States across the preceding five years.
• A mandatory criminal record and fingerprint check through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
• Verification of your citizenship or immigration status.

Canadian citizens and permanent residents can undergo a CGP assessment. However, if you hold citizenship from certain non-allied countries or have unexplained multi-year gaps living abroad, PSPC must review the file for special exemptions, which can easily add months to the process.

2. Government Security Clearances (Reliability Status vs. Level II Secret)

The Controlled Goods Program governs access to physical machinery and technical designs. When a contract touches tactical data links, communications equipment, or classified federal intelligence, you also need a formal personnel security clearance.

Defense job postings generally specify two levels:

You cannot apply for a federal security clearance on your own as an unemployed individual. An eligible employer registered in the Contract Security Program has to sponsor you. When a job ad says you must be eligible to obtain and maintain Secret clearance, the company plans to sponsor your paperwork once they extend an offer, assuming your background contains no disqualifying red flags.

Applications tend to stall or fail over unresolved personal bankruptcies, recent serious criminal convictions, unexplained debts or windfalls, and long unverified stretches spent living in high-risk foreign countries. Routine traffic tickets or student loans in good standing are not an issue. The investigator looks for problems with personal integrity, foreign influence, and financial vulnerability.

3. ITAR Compliance and U.S. Parts

Because Roshel and other Canadian manufacturers build on American commercial platforms (such as Ford truck frames) and use American subcomponents, they frequently handle equipment governed by the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Under the Canadian exemption within ITAR, domestic companies registered with the Controlled Goods Program can receive certain unclassified U.S. defense articles without separate export licenses. ITAR does, however, closely regulate dual-national workers whose secondary citizenship belongs to designated restricted countries. During onboarding, HR will review your passports to confirm compliance with both Canadian CGP rules and U.S. defense trade agreements.

Compensation, Workplace Culture, and Union Dynamics

Moving into defense manufacturing requires a clear look at the financial realities. Defense shops do not automatically replicate the collective bargaining setups or benefit packages built up over decades in legacy automotive plants.

When you evaluate an offer in this sector, you have to break down every piece of compensation, especially if you are weighing a contract against recall rights or layoff benefits from a previous auto employer. Read our analysis of base salary vs total compensation to properly quantify what is on the table.

Wage Comparisons: Commercial Automotive vs. Defense Manufacturing

In a unionized Big Three automotive assembly plant under traditional collective agreements, production assemblers often earn between $36 and $42 per hour at full rate. Those packages include defined-benefit pensions, full dental and vision coverage, and supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB). Skilled trades like toolmakers and industrial electricians often top out between $48 and $52 per hour.

In independent Canadian defense and tactical vehicle manufacturing, compensation depends heavily on whether the facility is unionized. Some Canadian defense operations, such as GDLS-Canada in London, Ontario, are organized by Unifor, featuring pay scales that reflect heavy industrial and aerospace contracts.

Other private defense operations run as non-union or mixed shops. Current industry postings for tactical vehicle upfitters, welders, and assemblers across the Greater Toronto Area and Peel Region generally show base hourly wages from $26 to $38 per hour for assemblers. Certified CWB welders and CNC machinists land between $34 and $46 per hour, depending on shift premiums and overtime availability.

Salaried positions, including electrical technologists, systems engineers, and quality assurance managers, generally offer competitive market compensation. Postings for mid-level marketing managers, supply chain specialists, and production supervisors in the defense vehicle space typically sit between $90,000 and $130,000 annually, paired with standard extended health, dental, and life insurance packages.

While base hourly wages on some private defense shop floors start below peak union auto rates, defense manufacturing frequently provides substantial overtime. That extra time is driven by strict delivery milestones for foreign military aid packages and allied army procurements.

Workplace Culture: Speed vs. Protocol

The workplace culture in defense vehicle fabrication is a distinct hybrid of automotive production and aerospace discipline.

Crews face real pressure to deliver vehicles quickly. When sovereign governments sign multi-hundred-million-dollar contracts to deliver vehicles to active conflict zones, production targets carry severe delivery penalties alongside urgent field demands.

At the same time, cutting corners is not tolerated. If an assembler forgets to torque a suspension control arm bolt to specification on a civilian sedan, the vehicle might develop a rattle and get fixed at a dealership. In an armored vehicle, that same loose bolt could cause a rollover during a high-speed evasive maneuver under mortar fire.

Because of this, documentation is everywhere. You will be required to sign off on job traveler sheets, log torque wrench values, and welcome quality assurance inspectors into your work bay multiple times per shift. If you thrive in a workplace where getting the build right the first time matters more than rushing parts out the door, defense work can be deeply rewarding.

Southern Ontario’s Growing Defense Cluster: Beyond Roshel

Roshel buying the Brampton plant made headlines in late 2026, but the expansion stretches across Ontario and Canada. When a primary contractor grows, dozens of tier-two and tier-three suppliers expand alongside them. Knowing where that work lives helps you target your applications properly.

London: Heavy Armored Combat Vehicles

London, Ontario has long anchored heavy armour production in Canada. That reputation rests on General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (GDLS-Canada), which manufactures the Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV 6.0) family for allied militaries and the Canadian Armed Forces. The plant doesn’t run in isolation, either. GDLS relies on a Southwestern Ontario network of electronics, hydraulics, and machining shops that together sustain thousands of advanced manufacturing jobs.

Peel Region and the GTA: Tactical Mobility and Electronics

Roshel’s growth across Brampton and Mississauga turned Peel Region into a focal point for smart armoured tactical vehicles. The Greater Toronto Area also draws heavily on aerospace and defense avionics. MDA Space builds defense satellite hardware and space robotics out of Brampton, while precision machining outfits in Oakville and Vaughan supply critical components to the larger players.

Ottawa: Systems Integration and Defense Tech

In the National Capital Region, the work centres on defense software, secure communications, and battlefield management systems. Major operations like General Dynamics Mission Systems-Canada, Thales Canada, and Leonardo DRS employ thousands of systems architects, software engineers, and project managers who build the electronics packages fitted inside tactical vehicles.

Southwestern Ontario: The Machining and Metal Stamping Supply Chain

Across Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Hamilton, and Windsor, dozens of small-to-medium machine shops have redirected capacity from automotive body panels and transmission cases toward defense parts. Those facilities regularly recruit metal fabricators, toolmakers, and CNC programmers who can handle titanium components and high-tolerance armour plating.

Practical Steps to Position Yourself for a Defense Career

Tossing a generic resume into an online job board will get you nowhere here. Moving into defense takes a deliberate plan and some groundwork before you send out your first application.

1. Get Your Personal Documentation in Order Early Do not wait for an interview to pull your background records together. You need a complete, gap-free five-year Canadian residential history. If you spent time living outside the country, request your RCMP criminal record check with fingerprints immediately. Having these details ready allows the company’s Designated Official to process your Controlled Goods application in days rather than weeks.

2. Renew and Upgrade Your Certifications Welders should verify that their CWB tickets (SMAW, GMAW, or FCAW) are up to date. Automotive technicians should clearly list their 310S or 310T credentials. Quality professionals will benefit from American Society for Quality (ASQ) certifications or introductory NDT coursework through CINDE. These qualifications prove right away that you can work to high-reliability manufacturing standards.

3. Target Both Primary Manufacturers and Their Subcontractors Most applicants only send resumes to prime contractors like Roshel, General Dynamics, or Bombardier, which leaves them competing against hundreds of identical applications. Broaden your search to tier-two suppliers providing laser cutting, suspension systems, wiring harnesses, ballistic glass, and powder coating. Joining a specialized subcontractor is often the quickest path to getting Controlled Goods clearance and putting defense production experience on your resume.

4. Prepare for Technical, Behavior-Based Interviews Defense hiring managers will test your practical problem-solving on the shop floor. Expect questions about managing out-of-spec components, reading complex engineering change notices (ECNs), and handling discrepancies between mechanical drawings and physical parts. They want to hear that you speak up when a measurement is off, rather than forcing parts together to hit a shift quota.

Southern Ontario’s industrial sector is changing quickly. The shift at the Brampton plant from passenger vehicles to tactical defense platforms ends an older automotive era and builds up Canada’s domestic defense capacity.

For Canadian tradespeople, fabricators, and engineers who organize their paperwork, update their resumes, and adapt to strict manufacturing tolerances, defense work offers stable, long-term careers.