Canada’s industry minister said Wednesday Stelco Holdings Inc. cannot use the trade war to justify cutting jobs it committed to when it bought the Hamilton, Ont.-based steel plant, particularly when the head of its U.S. parent company has publicly backed steel tariffs.
Mélanie Joly told reporters that the chief executive of US-based Cleveland-Cliffs has supported steel tariffs and therefore cannot characterize the company’s plan to lay off up to 500 workers due to tariffs and market pressures as beyond its control.
“He’s in favor of these US tariffs against steel,” she said, referring to Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves’ public support of American steel tariffs.
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“They cannot say that this is now an act of God or force majeure.”
If the company does not respond to the federal government’s demand for a plan outlining how it will meet all of its commitments, including maintaining more than 1,500 jobs, Ottawa will pursue enforcement action, Joly said.
“They need to comply,” she said. “If not, we will use the full force of the law.”
Canada gave US-based Cleveland-Cliffs the green light to purchase Stelco back in 2024 under the Investment Canada Act.
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Canada’s approval of that takeover was contingent on the new owner maintaining the number of union jobs and the majority of non-union positions, Joly said.
She sent a letter to Stelco president Paul Simon on Monday demanding a plan outlining how Cleveland-Cliffs intends to comply with all of the undertakings it made to Ottawa when it acquired Stelco, including its jobs commitment.
Ottawa has not yet received a response from Stelco on the letter, Joly said.
Meanwhile, she distinguished Stelco’s planned job cuts from recent layoffs and plant disruptions in the auto sector, saying Cleveland-Cliffs made legally binding employment commitments when it acquired the steelmaker.
“These obligations are binding.”
Joly is surrounded by failure in everything she does. She must have some fantastic backroom skills.
Liberal politicians and the brainless voter horde spent the last 11 years creating the conditions that destroy business’s in Canada. Now they pretend to be our protectors ?
The only people that can’t see the irony and manipulation are Liberal voters.
Canada is dead. Liberal voters killed it
The liberal government is an embarrassment for Canada but the fault lies with the people people that voted for them and still support them, they sadly don’t realize that they are the same as trump’s faithful followers.
Culpability????
Yeah, see you. In court buddy.
@ 7:51 Anonymous – The Libs are owning this. Joly is reminding Cleveland-Cliffs of what was agreed to in that sale and letting them know that their actions create culpability.
@ Menendez – If Trump kept NAFTA there would be no need to perpetually renegotiate CUSMA.
The Libs should own this. They approved the sale of Stelco two years ago when Carney advised Trudeau that our resource sector was not important and that our economy can run on real estate speculation and pixie dust.
Full force of the law because they screwed up negotiations on purpose? These businesses were literally begging the Gov to negotiate a deal. This has zero to do with the company. Joly is useless
Joly is confusing laws and business It was a business promise to keep the jobs, not a criminal code that will be broken. She can sue them, but why is she not suing Trump, who started this whole mess?
THE CANADAIAN GOVERNMENT HAS ALLOWED TOO MUCH AMEREICANISM INTO OUR COUNTRY, AMERICAN COMPANIES TAKE CANADA FOR A RIDE. WILL OUR GOVERNMENT NEVER LEARN?
Is today April Fools.
…and all of the other businesses that are leaving and adding to the number of unemployed…
.
How many companies have taken money from this government and then turned around and closed or moved to the US. It would be interesting how much money has been given to these companies and never been repaid
So Carney and this Liberal government didn’t deal with the high tariffs and now we cannot sell our steel but the company has to keep people employed doing nothing because of Carney and this Liberal governments incompetence Even Carney is buying steel from China than use Canadian steel. So now the big threat is to spend thousands of dollars taking the company to court which could cause them to close permanently which will mean more job losses
Lmfao
The liberals act like this wasn’t their plan from the beginning, which they have been supporting at every step. Shedding these jobs means they can further pursue the green energy scam, and also replace these worker with imported people to keep the profits coming from rental housing, diploma mills, and the LMIA scam.
It’s so rare that a CEO talks out of both sides of his mouth.
Give us tax breaks and will build a plant. Market conditions changed. We can’t build the plant now. Thanks for the corporate welfare.
If corporations are people why don’t they pay taxes? Why doesn’t an executive go to jail when they break the law?
Emergencies act rollout forthcoming.
Which means ten years of court wrangling until people not losing their jobs forgets.
“If not, we will use the full force of the law.”
In Canada today, this means a slap on the wrist, a $50 fine, and they’ll have to fly a rainbow flag.
F*ck you Joly. How are these plants to keep employees when carney is giving all the steel contracts to f*ckin CHINA!!
Who knew supporting something meant you have control of it?