Ontario assembling farmland in Waterloo meant for possible Toyota site
A controversial project seeing some farmland expropriated in Ontario's Waterloo Region is aimed at attracting new investment from the Japanese automaker that has a heavy footprint in the area
Hundreds of acres of prime farmland in Wilmot Township are being assembled and converted to an industrial site for a future Toyota plant, The Narwhal and The Waterloo Region Record have learned.
The controversial project began more than a year ago when the Region of Waterloo and Wilmot Township first responded to calls by the Doug Ford government to assemble shovel-ready land for industry to attract jobs.
The call went out to municipalities across the province and required at least 500 acres of land in order to attract large-scale investment. Waterloo’s regional government identified 770 acres, or about 323 hectares, in the middle of Wilmot, including six farms and six residential properties contained by Bleams Road, Nafziger Road, Highway 7 and Wilmot Centre Road.
Last March, farmers and property owners received offers from the region. Some said they were threatened with expropriation if they refused to sell. To date, the region has spent $18 million to buy one farm that covers 161 acres, and three residential properties, totalling about 20 per cent of the lands it wants to assemble. The region says it remains committed to negotiating fair deals with the land owners.
The land assembly project in Wilmot has sparked fierce opposition in the community among farmers and neighbours.
The region has previously told property owners the land is being readied to attract a major employer to the area. Both the region and province say no end-user has been lined up for the site.
In an email to The Narwhal and The Record, Philippe Crowe, a Toyota spokesperson, said, “We are not involved in any land assembly projects in Ontario.”
Several sources connected to the public and private sectors have told The Narwhal and The Record the land assembly was started so Toyota could build a third plant in this part of the province, adding to those in nearby Cambridge and Woodstock. The Narwhal and The Record have granted these sources confidentiality because none are authorized to speak publicly. They say nothing has been signed and discussions are ongoing but none have said Toyota has a role in the assembly process.
One source said, “The site is ready for Toyota whenever it’s ready for it.”
The Narwhal and The Record emailed the premier’s office, the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. None responded to the questions by the time of publication. The federal Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development referred questions to Toyota.
Lynsey Slupeiks, spokesperson for the Region of Waterloo, did not address a question from The Narwhal and The Record about whether the region had engaged in any discussions about the land with Toyota. She wrote that the land assembly is “underway to create a large-scale, contiguous, shovel-ready site that is attractive to a major employer locating or expanding in Waterloo Region.”
“Waterloo Region has lost several investments from major employers as a result of not having shovel-ready land. This resulted in a loss of over $4.1-billion in investment and over 5,000 new jobs, over the past three years,” she wrote.
Two sources say the future plant could produce batteries, helping to boost Ontario’s anticipated electric vehicle supply chain. Another facility in that supply chain would give incentive for Toyota to stay and grow in Canada in the wake of tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump that target automakers. While those threats have supposedly sparked the 2025 provincial election, in Wilmot, voters are heading to the polls with the controversy, secrecy and future of this site top of mind.
Toyota’s long history in southwestern Ontario
The parcels of land being assembled in Wilmot are located between the Toyota assembly plant in Cambridge, which opened in 1988, and the newer one in Woodstock, which opened in 2008. The two plants have a combined workforce of 8,700, and produce more vehicles than any other part of Ontario’s auto sector for the past five years in a row, according to Toyota. The two assembly plants are also supported by a network of parts factories that employ more than 35,000 people in the region, says the Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation.
At 770 acres, the proposed industrial site in Wilmot is larger than the Cambridge and Woodstock plants combined, with hundreds of acres of land left over.
Sources said the site is ideal for a Toyota electric-vehicle battery plant.
Sources have said the land assembly site in Wilmot, Ont., is strategically between two existing Toyota sites, and close to both highways and railways. Map: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal
The Japanese automaker is already making this shift: a new Toyota plant in Randolph County, N.C., that cost US$13.9 billion is set to begin production in April on electric-vehicle batteries.
In recent years, Ottawa and Queen’s Park have collectively provided billions of dollars in subsidies to help build such electric vehicle and battery plants across southwestern Ontario, including in Windsor, St. Thomas, Alliston, Port Colborne and Loyalist County. So far, Toyota has not been in the mix, which doesn’t make sense, according to a source in Waterloo Region, given Toyota’s importance to automaking in Ontario.
According to public federal records, Toyota representatives have lobbied federal officials across several ministries and on various topics including manufacturing and electric vehicles. Toyota also has a heavy presence in the Ontario lobbying registry, with company officials from its manufacturing subsidiary registered since last summer.
Vic Fedeli, the outgoing minister of economic development, previously said the province would help the region pay for the land assembly.
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Some in the auto industry say the province should be doing everything it can to keep companies like Toyota in Ontario in light of the tariff threats. Trump has also said Americans “don’t need” vehicles made in Ontario and laid out a strategy to force automakers to move their operations to the United States.
The source in Waterloo Region said the land assembly in Wilmot Township is critical because if Toyota builds another electric vehicle plant in the U.S., the future of Ontario’s Toyota operations will be in question.
In the past, Toyota has changed plans in response to political pressures. In April 2015, Toyota announced it was moving production of the Corolla from Cambridge to Mexico. After Trump first took office in January 2016, he threatened to impose tariffs on Toyota if it moved the plant to Mexico, and Toyota responded by moving the plant to the U.S.
“Toyota is a major investor in Ontario and the biggest employer in the region,” Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said in an interview. “We’d better be pitching them a super site like this.”
Land assembly a concern at the ballot for the 2025 Ontario election
Rural Ontario is the base of support for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party but the land assembly is threatening to wane it, in this area, at least. The Conservative incumbent, Mike Harris Jr. — son of former premier Mike Harris – won the riding by more than 4,100 votes in 2022. On Monday night, he was booed and called a liar at an all-candidates meeting in the New Hamburg Community Centre, near the assembly site.
During the discussion, Harris said voters in the riding are most concerned about having well-paid jobs close to home. At an earlier debate, Harris said 30,000 jobs are at stake if the land assembly in Wilmot Township is not completed.
Several landowners in Wilmot were told if they refused to sell their property for the industrial site, they’d face expropriation.
“How do you know how many jobs are at stake if you do not know what is going in there?” Jodi Szimanski, the Ontario NDP candidate in Kitchener-Conestoga, said in an interview Monday night. “It is another case where they are hiding secrets and not being transparent with people.”
The Ontario Liberal candidate, Joe Gowing, acknowledged the candidates are seeking office with little information about the most controversial issue in the riding. Gowing called the land assembly secretive, deceitful and undemocratic. He does not believe the Region of Waterloo and the Conservatives when they say no end-user is lined up for the land.
“The reason I don’t, is where are they getting the figure of 30,000 new jobs this is going to create? Where do they know that number from unless there is somebody waiting in the wings?” Gowing said in an interview Monday night.
In addition to the secrecy, voters are also concerned about the loss of farmland that could result from this industrial development. The 2021 Census of Agriculture shows Ontario is home to a quarter of Canada’s farms, and almost eight per cent of the country’s farmland. The Ontario Farmland Trust reports the province is losing 319 acres of farmland every day to other uses. At that rate, Ontario will lose all of its farmland in 100 years. And once farmland is paved over, it can no longer be used to sequester carbon, mitigate floods, provide habitat for wildlife or grow food.
Farmers are concerned about the potential environmental impacts of the Wilmot farmlands being assembled for industrial use.
As a result, the National Farmers Union, among other advocacy organizations, has come out strongly against the land assembly, especially after some Wilmot farmers said they were threatened with expropriation if they do not agree to sell.
That includes Stewart Snyder, a third-generation dairy farmer on Nafziger Road. The region first made an offer to buy his property about a year ago for $35,000 an acre. After he refused, Snyder said the region has more than doubled the offer but it contains a strange clause — if the region does not need it, the land will be returned to the farmer.
“The terms and conditions totally suck,” Snyder said. “If you were selling your house would you let someone use it for a year while they decide if they want it or not, without paying anything? No.”
“When you go buy a car, can you take the car and drive it for a year and then decide whether they want it or not? Without paying anything? No.”
The secrecy, bizarre conditions and threats of expropriation have caused Snyder to re-think his lifelong support for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. He texted Conservative leader Doug Ford about it in response to a campaign message asking for his support.
“My text said, ‘As a true blue supporter for the last 40 years, I am totally appalled by what’s going on and the process in Wilmot Township,’ ” Snyder said in an interview in his barn.
Snyder was pleasantly surprised when Ford personally called his family farm and told his wife to direct their questions to the Region of Waterloo. But the outreach was not enough for him to vote for the Conservatives.
“I have to think twice about how I will vote,” he said.
Another year of keeping a close watch
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
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