Industry Minister Tony Clement Congratulates Chrysler Canada on New Product Launches in Windsor and Brampton

WINDSOR, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 18, 2011) - The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, congratulated Chrysler Canada Inc. today on its two recent product launches in Windsor and Brampton.

"In April of 2009, our government made the difficult decision to join the Obama Administration in loaning support to Chrysler through a necessary restructuring phase. Today we are seeing encouraging signs that this was the right decision," said Minister Clement. "We would like to congratulate Chrysler Canada on the recent launch of five new vehicle models, which will be proudly built in Canada by highly skilled Canadian workers."

To mark the occasion, Jeff Watson, Member of Parliament for Essex, today attended an event on behalf of the Minister at the Chrysler Canada Inc. assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario, to celebrate the launch of the 2011 Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan models. The Windsor plant produced almost 300,000 of these vehicles last year, and it is expected that those numbers will reach close to 330,000 in 2011.

The launch of these products comes less than two weeks after Lois Brown, Member of Parliament for Newmarket–Aurora, attended Chrysler Canada's production launch of the 2011 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger as well as that of the 2011 Dodge Challenger at the company's Brampton Assembly Plant. Over 163,000 vehicles were manufactured in Brampton in 2010, with forecasts for 2011 expected to reach more than 192,000.

"Canadian workers here in Windsor and across the country are helping to strengthen our economic recovery," said Mr. Watson.

"Our government's support for the auto sector is helping to maintain and create jobs for hard-working Canadian families," said Ms. Brown.

These product launches by Chrysler Canada demonstrate that Canada's automotive industry is continuing on the road to recovery since the governments of Canada and Ontario provided assistance in 2009. Chrysler employs almost 35,000 Canadians at its three automotive plants in Windsor, Brampton and Etobicoke and in the company's dealer network across the country.