Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) operates automobile manufacturing factories in Ontario, Canada. It is a subsidiary of Toyota Motor North America, itself a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan. The plant assembles compact crossover SUVs: the Lexus NX, Lexus RX and the Toyota RAV4, the company's best selling vehicle in North America.
TMMC currently operates two plants in Cambridge, Ontario, called the North Plant and South Plant, and a third in Woodstock, Ontario called the West Plant.
History
The Toyota Motor Corporation announced on December 12, 1985, that it would open a plant in Cambridge, Ontario, one day after announcing it would open another plant in Georgetown, Kentucky called Toyota Motor Manufacturing USA (now called Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky). The official groundbreaking ceremony took place on May 6, 1986.
The first TMMC plant (now called the South Plant) opened on November 30, 1988, producing the Corolla. Through the rest of 1988, the plant would build 153 vehicles.
On March 28, 2012, TMMC announced that would be invested in the West Plant to increase production by 50,000 vehicles a year to a new total of 200,000 vehicles per year. This created 400 new jobs at the plant.
On July 24, 2012, Toyota also created 400 new jobs at the Cambridge plant to handle increased production of Lexus RX line in two years to 104,000 vehicles.
In April 2015, Toyota announced it would retool the North Plant to allow for expanded production of the RAV4, which had grown to become the company's best selling vehicle in North America. Production of the Corolla would be transferred to another plant, later announced to be Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi.
On April 25, 2019, the North Plant was chosen as a Lexus assembly site, with the first Lexus NX rolling off the line on March 30, 2022. TMMC Assistant General Manager and spokesman Greig Mordue stated "Our team members will decide whether or not a union best reflects their interest... At this point in time, we don't think they have anything to gain from a union", and described the defeat of the CAW drive saying "Our team members have recognized that a third party represents a complication they don't need." Despite this, however, the CAW supported Mordue as the (unsuccessful) Liberal candidate in the 2006 federal election instead of endorsing the NDP's Zoe Kunschner. Plant workers have cited poor health and safety conditions as a major reason for seeking union representation. In August 2014, Unifor announced it was withdrawing an application with the Ontario Labour Relations Board to become the bargaining agent for Toyota employees, and called off a vote to unionize the Woodstock and Cambridge plants.
Awards
Since 2005, TMMC has been named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers for 11 consecutive years by Mediacorp Canada Inc. and has been featured in Maclean's news magazine. TMMC was recognized as one of Waterloo Area's Top Employers, as announced in the Waterloo Region Record, Guelph Mercury and Cambridge Times.
TMMC has fourteen (14) J.D. Power and Associates plant quality awards, including the prestigious global Platinum Plant Quality Award in both 2011 and 2014 – at the time it was the only Toyota plant outside Japan to ever win this award. It also has seven Gold awards. TMMC was also recognized by JD Power as having the #1, 3, and 4 best assembly lines in all of North America.