Automotive
Vehicle monitoring software could soon use ‘kill switch’ under the guise of ‘safety’
From LifeSiteNews
By Caryn Lipson
Ambiguity surrounds the definitions of ‘impairment’ and the consequent privacy implications of such technology, raising fears of government overreach and erosion of rights.
In the name of safety, the government has taken steps that critics say have denied citizens what used to be considered inalienable constitutional rights.
Citizens are concerned that their right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment is being denied, ostensibly, to keep citizens safe from “harmful misinformation,” and fear that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is being infringed upon to combat gun violence. Watchdogs further contend that citizens are being denied the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination and the Sixth Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser when technology is used to gather evidence.
READ: Vietnam’s new biometric ID cards raise fears of privacy violations, data breaches
The fear now is that increased use of technology will soon mean an even greater loss of privacy and further erosion of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, due to certain provisions in Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill which will soon become mandatory. Under the guise of keeping citizens safe by preventing drunk driving, it may amount to ceding the freedom to travel to government control.
H.R.3684 – Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
The infrastructure bill, HR. 3684, passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by Biden on November 15, 2021, includes a provision for several vehicle monitoring technologies to be installed in cars, which have recently or will soon be required in new vehicles, including technology to determine if a driver is drunk or impaired.
The Center for Automotive Research’s Eric Paul Dennis reviewed the bill and summarized “key sections.” Dennis, a senior transportation systems analyst, reviewed the section on “Drunk and Impaired Driving Prevention Technology” (HR 3684 Section 24220) and explained that Congress gave the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) the role of determining exactly what this section means and how it will be implemented:
This provision directs NHTSA to issue a rule to require ‘advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology’ in new light vehicles.
- Congress tasked NHTSA with interpreting this law, including establishing the statutory meaning of ‘impaired.’
- The legislation directs NHTSA to adopt a new safety mandate by 15 November 2024 and begin enforcing it by September 2027 (at the latest) if this is feasible. [Emphases added.]
Impaired driving not defined
Others, such as Michael Satterfield, writing as The Gentleman Racer®, were more detailed in their review of the legislation. Satterfield poured through the 1,039-page infrastructure bill. He agreed that good roads, bridges, and safety are important to automotive enthusiasts, but wrote that he uncovered some concerning legislation “buried deep within HR.3684.” The legislation calls not only for changes in crash testing and advanced pedestrian crash standards but also for a “kill switch” to be standard for all new vehicles by 2026.
Satterfield explained that all new vehicles will be required to have passive monitoring systems for the driver’s behavior and an algorithm will determine if the driver is too impaired to operate the vehicle. If the algorithm decides that the driver is too impaired to operate the car, the program will have some means of taking control of the vehicle. But what constitutes impairment and what the program will actually do was not explained by the legislation, as Satterfield noted:
What is not outlined in the bill is what constitutes impairment, outside of the blood alcohol standard, how does the software determine the difference between being tired and being impaired? Passive blood alcohol testing won’t detect impairment from prescription painkillers or other narcotics.
The bill also doesn’t outline what happens when a vehicle detects a driver may be impaired other than that the system must ‘prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected’ which is all well and good in a bar’s parking lot. But what will this system do if an ‘impairment is detected’ while traveling at 75 mph on the highway? [Emphasis added.]
Accused by your own car’s surveillance system
Satterfield’s greatest concern was the question of individual privacy that a vehicle that monitors the driver raises, including who will have access to the data, and other issues such as the right not to self-incriminate under the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment right to face your accuser.
He also expressed concern that most drivers will not be aware of the new technology until it affects them in some way:
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the legislation is the lack of detail. The main concerns expressed by many, including former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, come down to privacy. Who will have access to the data? How long will it be stored? Will this capability be exploitable by third-party or government agencies to shut down vehicles outside of the function of preventing impaired driving?
Privacy concerns and the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser, have already been used to challenge data collection from license plate readers and redlight cameras. Automakers have little choice but to comply with new federal mandates and the majority of consumers will likely be unaware of this new technology until it impacts them in some way. [Emphasis added.]
Freedom or control?
John Stossel recently interviewed former vintage race car driver Lauren Fix about what she believes are the implications of the soon-to-be-implemented impaired driving technology, as reported on FrontPage Magazine.
READ: High-tech cars are secretly spying on drivers, resulting in insurance rejections: NYT report
Fix pointed out that the algorithm cannot determine what exactly is happening in the car and with the driver and asks Stossel how much control over his life he is willing to give up:
Are you willing to give up every bit of control of your life? Once you give that up, you have no more freedom. This computer decides you can’t drive your vehicle. Great. Unless someone’s having a heart attack and trying to get to the hospital.
California, Fix pointed out, already requires vehicle software to limit excess speed to 10 miles over the limit, legislation about which Frontline News reported.
Fix also revealed to Stossel that some companies already collect and sell driver data and proceeded to outline further abuses that could occur as a result of computer surveillance technology, such as charging for mileage or monitoring your “carbon footprint” and deciding that you maxed out on your monthly carbon credits so you can’t drive anymore until the following month. Or perhaps the car won’t start because the software determines you may be on your way to purchase a firearm.
What about hackers?
Can hackers access a vehicle’s software and take control of someone’s car? This possibility is another worrying aspect of the infrastructure bill, which Frontline News will discuss in an upcoming report.
Reprinted with permission from America’s Frontline News.
Automotive
Parliament Forces Liberals to Release Stellantis Contracts After $15-Billion Gamble Blows Up In Taxpayer Faces
After betting taxpayer billions on a green-industry deal that collapsed under U.S. tariffs, MPs move to expose what Ottawa promised Stellantis and what Canadians actually got for the money.
Parliament just blew the lid off one of the biggest corporate giveaways in Canadian history.
For years, Ottawa and Queen’s Park have bragged about “historic investments” in green manufacturing. What they didn’t say is that $15 billion of your money went to Stellantis, the Dutch auto conglomerate behind Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram, only for the company to announce it’s cutting 3,000 jobs in Brampton and shipping them south to the United States.
That betrayal is what triggered a heated meeting of the House of Commons Government Operations Committee on October 21. What started as routine procedure turned into a full-scale reckoning over how billions were handed to a foreign corporation with almost no strings attached.
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis opened with a blunt motion: produce every contract, memorandum of understanding, or side deal the government signed with Stellantis and its affiliates since 2015. Every page, every clause, in both official languages, “without redaction.” The demand wasn’t symbolic, it was about finding out if Trudeau’s government ever required the company to keep those Canadian jobs it was paid to “protect.”
Liberals scrambled to block it. MP Jenna Sudds proposed an amendment that would let bureaucrats black out whatever they deemed “sensitive.” In practice, that meant hiding anything embarrassing — from cabinet discussions to corporate fine print. Opposition MPs called it exactly what it was: a cover-up clause. It failed.
The committee floor turned into open warfare. The Bloc Québécois tried a softer sub-amendment giving the House Law Clerk power to vet redactions. Conservatives countered with their own version forcing departments to hand over unredacted contracts and justify any blackouts in writing. After a suspension and some backroom wrangling, a rare thing happened: compromise.
The motion passed unanimously. Even the Liberals couldn’t vote against it once the light was on.
The debate itself revealed how badly Ottawa has lost control of its own economic agenda. Conservatives pressed officials on why Canadians were paying billions for “job creation” only to see Stellantis pack up for Illinois once U.S. tariffs came down. Liberals blamed Trump, tariffs, and “global conditions,” the excuses were almost comical. Liberal members blamed Donald Trump —yes, really— for Stellantis abandoning Canada. According to them, Trump’s tariffs and “America First” trade policy scared the company into moving production south.
But here’s what they didn’t say: Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign on November 15, 2022, promising to rip up Joe Biden’s green industrial agenda and bring manufacturing back to U.S. soil. Everyone heard it. Everyone knew it. And yet, on July 6, 2023, more than half a year later, Ottawa proudly unveiled its $15-billion subsidy for Stellantis and LG Energy Solution — a deal built entirely on the assumption that Trump wouldn’t win.
So let’s be clear about what happened here. They didn’t just hand billions to a foreign automaker. They gambled that the next U.S. president wouldn’t change course. They bet the house —your tax dollars— on a political outcome in another country.
Think about that. Fifteen billion dollars of public money wagered on a campaign prediction. They bet on black, and it landed on red.
Even if the gamble had gone their way — even if Trump had lost and Biden’s green subsidy regime had survived untouched — the deal would still have been a terrible bargain.
During the committee meeting, the Bloc Québécois pointed to the 2023 Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report, which projected that the combined federal and Ontario subsidies to Stellantis and Volkswagen, roughly $28 billion total, including Stellantis’s $15 billion share, wouldn’t even break even for twenty years. That means taxpayers would have to wait until the mid-2040s just to recover what Ottawa spent.
So imagine the “best-case scenario”: the U.S. keeps its green-industry incentives, the plant stays in Canada, and production runs at full capacity. Even then, ordinary Canadians don’t see a financial return for two decades. There are no guaranteed profits, no guaranteed jobs, and no repayment. It was a long-odds bet on a global policy trend, financed entirely with public money.
In other words, whether the roulette wheel landed on black or red, the house still lost because the government put your chips on the table in a game it never controlled.
Behind the numbers, the story is brutally simple: Ottawa slid its chips across the table, wrote the cheques, and Stellantis walked away with the winnings. When MPs tried to see the receipts, the government grabbed for the cover of secrecy — no sunlight, no scrutiny, just “trust us.”
Now, for the first time, Parliament is about to peek under the table. The committee will finally see the real contracts — not the press releases, not the slogans, but the fine print that tells Canadians what they actually paid for. The review will happen behind closed doors at first, but the pressure to show the public what’s inside will be enormous.
Because if those documents confirm what MPs already suspect —that there were no job guarantees, no clawbacks, and no consequences —then this isn’t just a bad hand. It’s a rigged table.
Ottawa didn’t just gamble with taxpayer money; it gambled against the odds, and the dealer —in this case, Stellantis— already knew the outcome. Even if the wheel had landed on black, taxpayers were still stuck covering a twenty-year “break-even” fantasy, as the Bloc reminded everyone.
The next two weeks will show Canadians whether their government actually bought jobs or just bought headlines. One thing is certain: the high-rollers in Ottawa have been playing roulette with your money, and the wheel’s finally slowing down.
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Automotive
$15 Billion, Zero Assurances: Stellantis Abandons Brampton as Trudeau-Era Green Deal Collapses
Carney issues memos, Joly writes letters, and Freeland hides abroad—while 3,000 Canadian workers pay the price for a green gamble built on denial and delusion.
Stellantis has announced they’re leaving Brampton. That’s it. End of story.
Three thousand workers. Gone. A manufacturing base gutted. A city thrown into economic chaos. And a federal government left holding a $15 billion bag it handed over like a drunk tourist at a rigged poker table.
The Jeep Compass—the very vehicle they promised would anchor Ontario’s role in the so-called “EV transition”—will no longer be built in Canada. Production is moving to Belvidere, Illinois. The same company that cashed billions of your tax dollars under the banner of “green jobs” and “economic transformation” has slammed the door and walked out. And no, this isn’t a surprise. This was baked into the cake from day one.
Let’s rewind.
In April 2023, under Justin Trudeau’s government, Chrystia Freeland—then Finance Minister—and François-Philippe Champagne, the Industry Minister, announced what they called a “historic” agreement: a multi-billion-dollar subsidy package to Stellantis and LG Energy Solution to build an EV battery plant in Windsor, Ontario.
It was sold as a turning point. The future. A Green Revolution. Thousands of jobs. A new industrial strategy for Canada. But in reality? It was a Hail Mary pass by a government that had already crippled Canada’s energy sector and needed a shiny new narrative heading into an election cycle.
And here’s what they didn’t tell you: the deal had no enforceable commitment to keep auto production in Brampton. There were performance-based incentives—yes—but only for the battery plant. Not for the Brampton assembly line. Not for the existing workforce. And certainly not for ensuring the long-term health of Canada’s domestic auto industry.
They tied this country’s future to a globalist fantasy. A fantasy that assumed the United States would remain under the control of climate-obsessed technocrats like Joe Biden. A fantasy that required a compliant America pushing carbon neutrality, electric vehicle mandates, and billions in matching subsidies for green infrastructure.
But in November 2024, Americans said no.
Donald Trump was elected president. And just as he promised, he tore Biden’s green agenda to shreds. He pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord—again. He dismantled the EV mandates. He unleashed American oil and gas. But he didn’t stop there. Trump imposed a sweeping America First manufacturing policy, pairing 25% tariffs on imported goods with aggressive incentives to bring factories, jobs, and supply chains back onto U.S. soil.
And it’s working—because the United States doesn’t strangle its industries with the kind of red tape, carbon taxes, and bureaucratic self-sabotage that Canada does. Energy is cheaper, regulations are lighter, and capital actually wants to stay. So when companies like Stellantis look at the map, it’s no contest.
Now Stellantis, like any rational corporation, is doing what any business does under pressure: protecting its bottom line. They’re shifting production to a country that rewards investment instead of punishing it, a country that actually wants to build things again. That’s Trump’s America—competitive, unapologetic, and open for business—while Canada clings to a collapsing green fantasy and wonders why the factories keep leaving.

So what does Canada do in response? Our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, issues a carefully scripted memo on social media—not action, not legislation, not binding commitments—just a memo—reassuring workers he “stands by” the auto sector while offering vague promises about future budgets and long-term resilience. Lets be clear Carney isn’t saving jobs; he’s eulogizing them. Those 3,000 positions aren’t “paused” or “in transition.” They’re gone. Finished. Packed up and heading south. No memo, no committee, no press conference is bringing them back.
Chrystia Freeland, the architect of this mess, isn’t around to answer for any of it. She’s been conveniently shipped off to Kyiv, far from the consequences of the green boondoggles she helped engineer

And Industry Minister Mélanie Joly? She’s doing what this government does best: issuing strongly worded letters, drafted by lawyers, polished by comms teams, and lobbed into the void like they carry any real weight. She’s threatening legal action against Stellantis—vague, undefined, and almost certainly toothless. As if a global automaker backed by EU investors and billions in international capital is going to flinch because Ottawa wrote them a nasty note.
But let’s be absolutely clear here—what legal action? What’s the actual mechanism Ottawa is threatening to use? This wasn’t a blank cheque handed to Stellantis. According to public records, The $15 billion deal was built around performance-based incentives, structured to release funding only if Stellantis delivered on agreed milestones: production output, sales volume, battery module manufacturing at the Windsor facility. If they didn’t meet those metrics, they wouldn’t get paid. That’s the public line. That’s the defense.
Opposition Calls for Accountability
Conservatives, led by Raquel Dancho, are demanding real accountability, a formal investigation, a full reopening of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology (INDU) under Standing Order 106(4).
This isn’t a symbolic gesture. It’s a procedural weapon. When invoked, 106(4) forces Parliament to reconvene the committee, even if the government doesn’t want to, and compels ministers and officials to testify under oath. That’s what Dancho and her colleagues, Ted Falk, Michael Guglielmin, and Kathy Borrelli, have done. Their letter, dated October 15, 2025, demands that INDU immediately examine the Stellantis debacle — the $15 billion taxpayer-funded subsidy that failed to secure a single guarantee for Canadian auto jobs.
The letter is explicit. It references Stellantis’ decision to move Jeep Compass production from Brampton, Ontario to Illinois, a move that puts 3,000 Canadian jobs at risk despite the billions handed to the automaker under the Trudeau-Freeland-Carney green industrial strategy. It details how the federal and Ontario governments offered over $15 billion to secure battery plant investments, but with no enforceable job protection clauses to safeguard workers at Stellantis’s Canadian operations.
It doesn’t stop there. The letter points directly at Mark Carney, accusing him of breaking his promise to “put elbows up” and negotiate a fair deal with President Trump. It notes that Carney’s October 7th White House visit yielded nothing but new U.S. tariffs on Canadian autos and lumber, while Stellantis and GM expanded their operations south of the border. “Mark Carney broke his promise,” the MPs write, “and his weakness abroad is costing Canadian jobs at home.”

Dancho’s accompanying tweet lays out the message clearly and without spin:
“Stellantis received up to $15 billion in taxpayer subsidies—with no assurances of job retention in Canada. Yesterday, Stellantis announced that they were moving production to the U.S. and investing $13 billion in their economy. Conservatives are calling to reconvene the Industry Committee to study this decision and learn how such a failure happened. While the Liberals pat themselves on the back for announcements and rhetoric, auto workers are being told that their jobs are on the chopping block. They deserve clarity.”
Dancho’s move changes the game. With the NDP gutted and no longer shielding the government in committee, the opposition finally has the numbers and the mandate to dig. Ministers like Mélanie Joly and François-Philippe Champagne will now have to answer, under oath, for the deals they signed. Officials from Innovation, Finance, and Employment Canada will be subpoenaed to explain what oversight, if any, was built into the Stellantis agreements.
Final thoughts
I wrote about this when the deal was signed, and I wasn’t guessing. I said it plainly: this $15 billion green industrial experiment was a reckless, ideological bet that depended entirely on Donald Trump not winning the presidency.
Now here we are. Trump’s back in office — and he’s gone even further than I predicted. He didn’t just rip up Biden’s climate agenda; he imposed broad “America First” tariffs across the board to drag manufacturing back onto U.S. soil. Twenty-five percent duties on Canadian and Mexican goods, combined with tax breaks and energy policies that make it cheaper to produce in America than anywhere else. That single move detonated the fragile logic behind Trudeau and Freeland’s so-called industrial strategy.
So Stellantis did what any corporation would do when faced with a government that punishes production and a neighbour that rewards it: it packed up and left. The company took billions in Canadian subsidies, thanked Ottawa for the free money, then announced a $13 billion expansion in the United States—under Trump’s protectionist umbrella.
Let’s be clear: when I bet, I bet smart. I hedge. I read the table. I make damn sure I’m holding something real. These people—the Liberal government—went all in with a high card and a hollow narrative, betting your tax dollars on a political fantasy. They thought they could bluff their way into an industrial renaissance while ignoring the shift happening just across the border.
And you want final thoughts? Here they are: I am absolutely sickened by the people responsible for this disaster and you know exactly who I mean. Chrystia Freeland, who vanished from Cabinet and failed up into some made up ambassador’s post, her entire political career a string of bailouts, virtue signals, and globalist pageantry. And François-Philippe Champagne, the man who handed out our tax dollars like Monopoly money and couldn’t negotiate a cup of coffee without being outplayed.
They won an election based on this. Based on lies. Based on phony climate promises and fake job projections and polls manipulated by the same Mainstream Media that cashes federal subsidy cheques while calling themselves journalists. Do you think they’re going to hold Champagne accountable? Do you think they’re going to track Freeland down between photo ops in Kyiv and ask how 3,000 Canadian families are supposed to pay their mortgage now?
Of course not. They’re all on the same payroll.
Well guess what, I’m not. I don’t take their money. I don’t need their approval. And I am not shutting up. Not now. Not until that committee gets answers. Not until those ministers are dragged before Parliament. And not until Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne are fired for the betrayal they’ve inflicted on Canadian workers.
This isn’t over. Not by a long shot. I’m going to bang this drum until it splits. And every time they try to bury this story, I’ll be there digging it back up. You’ve been lied to. Robbed. Betrayed. And someone is finally going to answer for it.
So stay tuned. Stay loud. And for God’s sake, stay angry.
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