RBC Global Asset Management Inc. announces RBC Target 2025 Education Fund maturity date, changes to RBC U.S. small-cap equity funds, and risk rating changes
TORONTO, June 26, 2025 /CNW/ - RBC Global Asset Management Inc. ("RBC GAM Inc.") today announced details regarding the maturity of RBC Target 2025 Education Fund, changes to RBC U.S. Small-Cap Core Equity Fund and RBC U.S. Small-Cap Value Equity Fund, and risk rating changes for certain RBC Funds.
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Windsor lives and dies by the auto industry, which is hitting the brakes due to Trump's tariffs. But the border city has been caught up in America's carnage before and kept on rolling Article content WINDSOR, Ont. — The Wu family of Windsor and their small auto parts company have been through booms, busts, a global pandemic — and survived it all. They didn't see the tariffs coming. The family's 36-employee business, Stratus Plastics International, is an injection moulding company that makes car parts in an east Windsor industrial area. Since U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs, business has fallen 20 per cent. 'We're seeing fluctuations of volumes like crazy,' said vice-president Colby Wu, who has reduced staff hours in the dwindling hope of avoiding layoffs. 'OK, Chrysler is running for two weeks. Now they're gone for two weeks. And now we don't even know when they're going to start up,' said Wu. 'This isn't just Chrysler. It's Ford, GM, everybody … The uncertainty makes it even worse.' Stratus is the second business started by his father, William Wu, a Chinese refugee who came to Canada in 1965. The elder Wu's previous calling was creating clay models for auto companies before AutoCAD made the craft redundant. In 2004, William Wu moved from the model shop and opened Stratus in a 30,000-square-foot plant. A few years later, the Great Recession hit, a worldwide crash that started in 2007 and killed businesses. Stratus was nearly one of them. 'I remember my father taking out all his life savings, dumping it into the business,' said Colby Wu. 'Maxing out all his credit cards to pay payroll.' The work started trickling back, and they brought automation to the factory. The business was flourishing — so much so, they expanded, opening another factory in Kentucky. Then COVID-19 hit. Contracts were cancelled, and Wu was forced to sell the Kentucky facility, taking a huge loss, just to keep the doors open in Windsor. 'Magically, somehow, I ended up keeping this business in Windsor alive,' said Colby Wu. Now tariffs are eating away at what they've built. Job losses, dying companies, a tense showdown — Windsor is in the trenches of America's trade war. This southwestern Ontario city, standing in the shadow of the Detroit skyline, has been the nexus of Canada's auto and manufacturing sectors for 120 years. Trump wants what Windsor has. And he's not asking. It's an existential threat, but Windsor has been here before. In economic hard times, often brought on by American turmoil, this border city knows they'll be hit first, hardest and longest. Cavalier Tool and Manufacturing, a 250-employee company that has been riding the auto industry highs and lows since 1975, has already lost about $15 million in sales to Trump's tariffs. Smaller suppliers of companies like Cavalier are facing the end of the line. 'They're dead,' said Cavalier owner Brian Bendig. 'There are like six shops right now that are going out of business. They depend on guys like us. It's been catastrophic.' Trump's divergent reasons for swinging the tariff hammer against Canada have ranged from stopping the 'cheaters' and 'pillagers' taking advantage of the United States to ending the flow of illegal fentanyl. But he's mostly irritated about a U.S. trade deficit. He wants to protect American manufacturing — especially auto manufacturing — and that means upending international supply chains. Trump's long tariff list includes 25 per cent levies on all imports that don't comply with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). There is a 25 per cent tariff on all passenger vehicles and parts imported into the U.S., with partial carve-outs based on the amount of American content. On June 3, Trump doubled the tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50 per cent. It was another major blow to the auto industry, which is heavily dependent on those essential automaking materials. Windsor is the canary in the mine shaft ... it is effectively like a poster child for how the economy goes through these cycles and waves Dimitry Anastakis, University of Toronto business historian And it's the start of a vicious cycle. Increased costs for carmakers ultimately mean more expensive cars for consumers. That could lead to shrinking car sales, causing a decline in production — and lost jobs. Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney met June 16 on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Kananaskis, Alta., and agreed to a 30-day deadline to strike a trade deal. But that's no sure thing with Trump. And even if a deal does emerge, Windsor is already feeling the punches, which doesn't bode well for the rest of Canada. 'Windsor is the canary in the mine shaft,' said Dimitry Anastakis, a University of Toronto business historian. It's a barometer for Canada's manufacturing economy, he said. 'Because there's such a concentration of auto manufacturing in Windsor, it is effectively like a poster child for how the economy goes through these cycles and waves.' More to lose Next to real estate, a vehicle is the average person's biggest purchase. But most people shy away from car lots and finance applications when they're worried about the economy imploding. 'The auto industry is a leading indicator of when things are not going well, because people don't have the money to purchase vehicles and there's a lack of confidence in the consumer market,' said Anastakis, who has published books about Canadian auto history and covers Windsor in his university lectures. A late April report from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario stated the tariffs would likely push Ontario into a recession in 2025. 'Windsor is expected to be impacted the most,' the report stated. It's already happening. From March to April, Canada's exports of passenger cars and light trucks plunged by 22.9 per cent, according to recent figures from Statistics Canada. Exports dropped after tariffs prompted manufacturers to ease off the production pedal. Windsor's unemployment rate spiked nearly two points from January to May, to 10.8 per cent, compared to the provincial unemployment rate of 7.9 per cent in May. Considering that every auto job creates about eight spinoff jobs, there's more to lose. 'Tariffs are a big impact to the entire economy,' said Justin Falconer, CEO of Workforce WindsorEssex. 'It's very fair to say that it's had a big impact on everything. It's pulling it all down.' Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens declined requests to talk about the threat facing his city. One early sign of Windsor's worker troubles came punctuated with a union blockade. 'It wasn't a pretty picture,' said Emile Nabbout, president of Unifor Local 195, who represents 3,000 manufacturing workers in Windsor. On March 31, before its employees showed up to work, automotive supplier Titan Tool & Die sent a truckload of dies from its Windsor operation to a Michigan facility. Dies are customized manufacturing tools used to cut and shape various materials such as metal and plastic. They are used to make everything from paper clips to medical equipment. In this case, it's car parts. The company's American customers wanted the equipment stateside so they wouldn't have to pay tariffs on what the tools produced. That didn't go over well with Titan's unionized employees. 'Some workers showed up at the facility,' said Nabbout, who was among them. 'Unifor was left with no option but to take some type of action.' When the company tried to haul out a second load of equipment, it was met with a blockade by a few dozen Titan employees, previously laid-off workers, and local Unifor leadership. They parked an SUV in front of the tractor trailer and marched in front of it, waving Unifor flags. Things got tense and the police were called in. The standoff lasted about seven hours, until the company backed down and unloaded the tools. The union ultimately lost that battle. Titan Tool & Die, an international company that began in a Windsor basement in 1956, went to court seeking an injunction to stop another blockade. The company argued that the equipment belonged to its clients. The judge sided with Titan Tool & Die. Ontario Superior Court Justice Jasminka Kalajdzic banned the union, and anyone else, from staging another blockade at Titan. Titan did not respond to Postmedia requests for comment. 'They were able to move the tools,' said Nabbout. 'That will be remembered by our workers, by the union, and by the community. So, yeah, that was a little bit intense. Emotions were high.' Over at the Windsor branch of KB Components, a Swedish car parts maker where Nabbout also represents unionized workers, 100 people have been laid off. The company previously had about 500 employees in Windsor, the home of its first North American operation. The company supplies plastic parts for gas-powered and electric vehicles. Demand for electric vehicles was already slumping, with their higher costs compared to gas-powered cars a big reason for that. Trump's tariffs, which will only make them more expensive, haven't helped. The general manager for KB Components in Windsor did not respond to interview requests from Postmedia. The Windsor Census Metropolitan Area has 236,000 working-age people. Falconer said 48,800 of them are in manufacturing. Canada exports about $82-billion worth of motor vehicles and auto parts each year, most of which are produced in southern Ontario. Nearly 90 per cent of those exports go to the U.S., according to the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing. And at least 96 per cent of all Windsor-Essex exports go across the Windsor-Detroit border. North America's busiest border crossing There's a massive infrastructure system in Windsor built around making trade move. All that trade needs a way over, or under, the Detroit River. The Windsor-Detroit border, the busiest crossing in North America, handles one-third of all Canada-U.S. commerce, according to economic development organization Invest WindsorEssex. More than 40,000 commuters, tourists and truck drivers cross it every day, carrying $1 billion worth of trade. Windsor has four border crossings, with a fifth soon to open. Freight trains have been running the Detroit River Rail Tunnel since 1910. The Ambassador Bridge, currently the main trade artery between Canada and the U.S., opened in 1929. The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, linking the Windsor and Detroit downtown areas opened the following year. The Port of Windsor, a major cargo and shipping hub created in 1999, receives more than 600 ships every year. The $6.4-billion Gordie Howe International Bridge, which has been under construction since 2018, is slated to open this fall. The Canadian government is paying for the new bridge, planning to recoup costs from tolls. The new bridge is long overdue. There's always traffic congestion at Windsor's border crossings. The line of tractor-trailers on Huron Church Road, the six-lane approach to the Ambassador Bridge, can stretch for kilometres at any time of day. At least, it used to. At its peak, in 1999, Windsor attracted 9.1 million yearly visitors, most from the United States. Numbers plummeted to 3.2 million after the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001 and fell again during the COVID pandemic. But visitor numbers had been on an upswing, reaching 5.7 million in 2024 — amounting to $878 million in spending — according to the local tourism bureau. Then the tariffs struck. 'Tariffs on auto, steel, aluminum, etc., are bad for Windsor because they raise the cost of everything,' said Anastakis. 'But they really raise the cost of manufacturing to the point of making production at the city's assembly, parts, tool, mould and die plants much more expensive.' Disrupting the whole system A single piston, the humble workhorse of an internal combustion engine, can tell the tale of the auto industry's evolution into one conjoined entity. Aluminum must be smelted, melted, forged, machined, coated, finished and assembled into an engine, which then goes into an automobile. Those processes all happen in different places, where the respective materials and expertise are concentrated. 'If the different locations happen to be in different countries, which often they are, that piston has effectively crossed the border four, five, six, seven times,' said Peter Frise, former head of the University of Windsor's Centre for Automotive Research and Education. That's one piece. The average car contains roughly 30,000 parts. Canada makes more cars — about 1.3 million in 2024 — than it can sell domestically. 'If we can't export, the Canadian market can't absorb everything that we make,' said Frise. 'The whole system is designed to work together back and forth across the border. If that is disrupted, it simply must hurt the jobs here.' Trump's desire to rip that system apart and rebuild it all on U.S. soil would take years — if it were even possible. Consider Windsor's new NextStar Energy Plant, a joint venture between Stellantis and LG Energy Solution to build electric vehicle batteries on the eastern edge of the city. After spending three years and more than $6 billion to build the sprawling factory, the companies are likely not eager to pull up stakes and rebuild in the United States. 'I agree with every other expert who says the same thing, that taking this apart and putting it back together in a different way in a short time is just not feasible,' Frise said. 'Common sense has to return to all of this before the economy is really wrecked.' In Windsor, the disruption started before the tariffs did. Trump levelled his first tariffs against Canada on March 4. In early February, Cavalier had already lost $5 million in sales. Hoping to avoid layoffs, the company asked employees to take extended weekends and other voluntary time off. When work is scarce, feeder and supply companies bid low to secure the projects that are available. 'All the prices are dropping because everyone's looking for work,' Bendig said. 'It's kind of a two-sided problem now,' he said, meaning they are making less profit from the reduced work they are getting. Profit margins in the parts sector are already squeezed. 'They will not be profitable,' said Anastakis. 'Loss of sales, customers, layoffs — in Windsor, tariffs have a ripple effect that ultimately results in layoffs.' Even the big guys feel the punches. 'In the face of uncertainty, companies do what families do,' said Frise, who is also a professor of mechanical and automotive engineering at the University of Windsor. 'If you're not sure you're going to have a job next year, you're not going to go out and buy a new car today. So, you tend to freeze investments and freeze big spending projects.' Windsor Assembly Plant, which produces the Chrysler Pacifica, Grand Caravan, and Dodge Charger, shut down for two weeks in April. Stellantis, Chrysler's parent company headquartered in the Netherlands (the company owns multiple vehicle brands including Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge), said tariffs were a 'deciding factor.' Stellantis planned to launch a third shift at Windsor Assembly Plant and even conducted interviews to staff the line. But the company revealed in May those plans are on hold. On May 22, Stellantis also announced it would halt its made-in-Windsor Dodge Daytona EV, at least for the 2026 model year. Sales of the car have been slow, but the company said it is postponing production to 'assess the effects of U.S. tariff policies.' The Stellantis factory, normally a two-shift operation, dropped to one shift through most of June. That means about 2,000 people not going to work. LouAnn Gosselin, spokesperson for Stellantis in Canada, said the downtime was also related to a move from the 2025 production model year to 2026. 'We will continue to monitor the situation,' she said. Unifor's Nabbout said even temporary shutdowns at the auto plant cause instant fallout. 'When Windsor Assembly goes down, all the feeder plants are impacted immediately,' he said. Windsor Assembly Plant has five main local feeder plants, which employ about 1,300 people. Another five plants in the U.S., with about 900 workers, are also impacted when assembly shuts down. There have been temporary layoffs, Nabbout said. His union local has 18 collective agreements expiring this year. Tariffs will complicate negotiations. 'Every employer, when you go to the bargaining table, they bring tariffs as being the main source of the stress point in the financials,' he said. Many companies in Windsor are on the brink, with empty shop floors and idle machines. Most don't want to talk about it. Perhaps they don't want their customers to know. Or their employees. Or maybe they fear publicly criticizing the U.S. government, then running into a MAGA officer at U.S. Customs. Being barred from entering Michigan would be life-altering for thousands of people in Essex County, the collection of municipalities that surrounds Windsor. Anti-American boycotts? That's not possible or desirable for many Windsorites. Centuries on the frontline with America Separated from Michigan by the mile-wide Detroit River, Windsor is closer to downtown Detroit than any American suburb. The best view of Detroit's skyline is from Windsor's waterfront. Trump's antagonism tears at a cherished social and cultural fabric. Windsor and Detroit are bound in a finger lace so unique that former governor general Michaëlle Jean is making a documentary about it. Windsor has sat on the front lines of tension with the United States since before the War of 1812, the only war ever fought on Canadian soil. The settlement of Sandwich, now part of Windsor, was the site of the first American incursion into Upper Canada. In the days of abolitionism, Windsor was a key terminal on the Underground Railroad. For many of the roughly 40,000 Black slaves who fled America in search of freedom, the first stop in Canada was the Sandwich First Baptist Church. During Prohibition, when rum-running was the region's second largest industry behind auto manufacturing, bootleggers dodged federal agents while speeding across cracking ice in trucks overloaded with Canadian booze. Based on a line from Journey's rock anthem Don't Stop Believin' and a geographic peculiarity — Windsor is the only Canadian city south of the U.S. border — some Windsorites lovingly call their home South Detroit. When the Detroit Grand Prix speeds through the streets of the Motor City every June, the roar of the engines rumbles through Windsor neighbourhoods. The annual Detroit Free Press Marathon runs partly through Windsor. Windsorites' kids play Little League baseball and take dance lessons in Detroit. Birthdays are celebrated in bars along Detroit's bustling Woodward Avenue or its historic Corktown neighbourhood. And it is Windsorites who ride the euphoric highs and painful lows of Detroit's sports teams. They join the thousands of fans who call in sick or book a vacation day every April for the Detroit Tigers' home opener. The Tigers host an annual Canadian appreciation day at Comerica Park. Such connections, born from geography, are unbreakable. Windsor's economy was similarly forged through its location on a map. But repeated attacks have shown its vulnerability. Lessons from history Despite various efforts over the years to diversify, Windsor has always been predominantly an auto and manufacturing town. 'Most of the Windsor area really relies on the automotive sector,' said Wu. 'There's no other business as prominent here in Windsor, unfortunately.' It's been that way since 1904. Windsor helped pioneer the auto industry — in another time of tariffs. Henry Ford, who founded the Ford Motor Company in Detroit on June 16, 1903, was looking for a way around levies against countries outside the British Empire. Canadian Gordon McGregor, who ran a failing wagon-making outfit called Walkerville Wagon Works, handed it to him. McGregor raised $125,000 in capital and promised Ford Motor Company 51 per cent of the shares. Henry Ford signed an agreement for McGregor to produce the Model C, handing over the plans and patents. On Aug. 17, 1904, the Ford Motor Company of Canada was founded in Walkerville, now a destination for foodies and fashionistas in central Windsor. The Model C started rolling out of the former wagon factory in September 1904. They made 117 Canadian Fords that year. The first overseas shipments went to Calcutta, India. A few years later, the booming business moved to a larger facility in a section of current-day Windsor still known as Ford City. The plant is now shuttered, but Ford still employs about 1,800 people in Windsor at the Essex Engine Plant. A rare bright spot in the current tariff war, the plant remains at full production. McGregor's early deal with Ford was the start of an integrated cross-border system that both countries still depend on. In 1904, there was a 35 per cent tariff on U.S. cars entering countries within the British Empire. But individual parts carried lower duties. So, McGregor imported U.S. parts and assembled them in Canada. Other companies quickly saw the advantages. Multiple now-defunct car and truck companies opened early in Windsor's automotive history, including Studebaker and Packard Motor Company. As the car companies rolled in, so did the secondary and tertiary industries, making Windsor a tool, die and mould-making mecca. 'The second Industrial Revolution, which the auto industry is so famous for — the moving assembly line, mass manufacturing, mass consumption — all that stuff associated with Henry Ford and Fordism really took root in Windsor,' said Anastakis. The Chrysler Corporation of Canada was incorporated in Windsor on June 17, 1925, only 11 days after the Chrysler Corporation was founded in Detroit. It rose from the ruins of the Chalmers Motor Company and Maxwell Motor Corporation, which had both set up Windsor shops in 1916. In 1925, Chrysler Canada produced 4,500 cars. Its 280,000-square-foot factory on what was then the outskirts of Windsor became the core of Windsor Assembly Plant. Built in 1928, it is the company's oldest plant still in operation. The plant is a legacy for many Windsor families, whose members have built cars, lives and livelihoods working at the plant for every generation since it opened. About 4,500 people currently work there. Frank Sinatra drove his new Chrysler Imperial off the Windsor assembly line in 1980. It was the Special Edition, in shimmering 'glacier blue crystal,' to match his oceanic eyes. Legend has it that the car and $1 were all Ol' Blue Eyes wanted from Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca, a close friend, to endorse the company. Production on the first modern minivan began there in 1983. The minivan revolutionized the auto industry and became another symbol of Windsor's significance in the manufacturing world. General Motors crossed the border in 1919 to set up a branch of its Fisher Body Company. But GM's last Windsor factory, the Kildare Road transmission plant, closed in 2010, a casualty of the Great Recession. Ground zero In Windsor, the tough times always seem tougher. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down factories, and a semiconductor shortage simultaneously halted production on millions of vehicles, Windsor's unemployment rate was 16.6 per cent — the highest in Canada. 'During the recessions, we always have the highest unemployment,' said Wu. 'Windsor has always been that place.' During the Great Depression, Canada's unemployment rate surged past 30 per cent. In Windsor, unemployment climbed as high as 50 per cent. It's worth noting that American tariffs helped accelerate the Great Depression. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was signed into law in 1930, drastically raising tariffs to protect American farmers and manufacturers. It triggered a trade war. Fifty years later, the lessons from that time were recalled by former U.S. president Ronald Reagan. 'Millions of American jobs are tied to imports,' he said during a 1986 radio address on free trade. During the recessions, we always have the highest unemployment. Windsor has always been that place Colby Wu 'The way to a better life is to open markets now closed, improve trading conditions, and to expand our exports. We learned that lesson half a century ago when we tried to balance the trade deficit by erecting a tariff wall around the United States. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs ignited an international trade war and helped sink our country into the Great Depression.' The GOP take on tariffs has significantly shifted since the Reagan era. ''Tariff' is the most beautiful word in the dictionary,' Trump has repeated. When the Great Recession came along in 2007, triggered primarily by the collapse of the U.S. housing market, Windsor was bludgeoned again. Car sales plummeted. The Big Three, Detroit's iconic car brands, were crumbling. Windsor was the epicentre of the fallout in Canada. 'The job losses were high,' said Eddie Francis, Windsor's mayor at the time. 'The mood was as dark as it could be. There was so much uncertainty and anxiety.' Manufacturing plants in Windsor closed. GM pulled up stakes, ending a 90-year legacy and killing 1,400 jobs. Even for Windsor, the job losses were shocking. The Canadian unemployment rate around that period peaked at 8.7 per cent. In Windsor, it was 15.4 per cent. 'We're talking about automotive companies that were on the brink,' Francis recently told Postmedia. 'They were looking for a lifeline. And there was actual debate as to whether or not governments would step in.' Francis sent letters to then-prime minister Stephen Harper and Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, pointing out the dire need for financial aid for the Canadian auto industry. 'It basically said stop with this political stuff because if you guys don't act, Windsor is dead,' recalled Francis. 'It was that clear. I said, our city will die.' The mere mention of those years makes Wu squirm. His family's Stratus Plastics company has scratched and clawed its way back too many times. Trump's tariffs mean another redo. 'Essentially, all that work for the past 20 years to today, I'm starting back at zero,' Wu said. 'It's definitely a very scary time. We're just all caught in a bad place at the wrong time.'
