Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly has threatened to sue Stelco Inc for shutting down its Hamilton finishing operations and laying off around 500 workers.
Stelco owner Cleveland Cliffs is calling Joly’s bluff, citing the government’s own Investment Canada Act guidelines.
OTTAWA — Stelco Inc. says Canadian exports of cold-rolled and coated steel to the United States have plunged 58 per cent compared with pre-trade-war levels, while continued foreign imports put pressure on domestic producers.
In a seven-page letter to Canada’s industry minister obtained by The Canadian Press, Stelco president Paul Simon says Canadian exports of those steel products to the United States fell by 226,000 tonnes in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the 2024 quarterly average.
At the same time, he says imports accounted for 45 per cent of market share for those products, despite Ottawa’s efforts to protect the industry by restricting steel imports.
Simon says a combination of declining exports to the United States, weaker domestic demand and continued foreign steel imports has shrunk the market for products made at Stelco’s Hamilton Works by more than one million tonnes annually — roughly twice the plant’s historical annual production of cold-rolled and coated steel.
[…] Stelco’s general counsel, says the company is proceeding with plans to idle its Hamilton finishing operations despite Joly’s warning of possible legal action. He says the layoffs do not violate its binding employment commitments as U.S. tariffs and continued foreign steel imports have dramatically changed market conditions. (read more)
🚨 ULTIMATIUM BACKFIRES 🚨
After threatening Stelco's U.S. owner with the full force of the law over 500 potential layoffs, Mélanie Joly just a rude awakening.
Cleveland-Cliffs is calling her bluff, citing the government's own Investment Canada Act guidelines. pic.twitter.com/nPPysmGiIT
— Northern Perspective (@NorthrnPrspectv) October 10, 2026
Stelco layoffs begin as Cliffs says it will fight Ottawa in courthttps://t.co/jEQcNIEExj pic.twitter.com/2EMTA40oKn
— Western Standard (@WesternStandard) October 13, 2026
Canada has entered the FO phase…
.
The Canadian Liberals actually Communists put Green Policies over Canadian Families. Our Democrats and their Liberals hate the people of their countries.
Somehow Carney’s whole elbows up BS isn’t going to put food on the tables of 500 Canadian families.
Is this the beginning of the great awakening for the people of Canada?
No
lol. 18 likes for a deadpan response!
Canada died when the truckers were towed and debanked.
Atlas shrugged.
Move the steel mill to the US?
The stock is trading at $12 and change. It might be time to buy.
Like the spouse who abuses the other spouse, that spouse leaves.
The abuser sues.
Pure commie move.
Forced control never works on humans who have been given free will from God.
There is no record in recent history of a government demonizing and suing a company into profitability, but given the tone deaf antics of Canada’s authorities of late, they’ll likely have to be reminded of this the hard way.
Rhetoric is one thing, as is political posturing and picking fights with your runaway largest trading partner, while at the same time whoring your country to a predatory, export-sustained Chinese mercantile system. But reality on the ground, after the smoke clears, is jobs lost. And all the threats and hand wringing in the world will not change that.
The next step is up to the Canadian people.
J
What will happen in the near term will be roughly 2000 Canadian jobs lost, not just 500. For every high paying industrial job are generally 3 service sector jobs which support them. Restaurants, janitorial, retail etc etc will all be downsizing.
Everything Leftist’s touch turns immediately to CRAP, Right Carney?
The left are destroyers / wrecking balls, they do not build or create. All they have accomplished is taking a good things and ruining them, but also taking a bad thing (the homeless) and making it worse. (The left agenda is destroy Trump)
The mindset of a conservative is to build, improve, create. I would expect this to be common sense but not at this moment in time for some.
The question comes down to something so simple. Do you want your neighborhood destroyed, employment opportunities to disappear and any form of a future for our kids, and grandkids to vanish also?
Common sense says make things better for tomorrow than it was today and our future could be very prosperous for all.
I suppose the next logical step is for Carney to Nationalize the means of production, so that he can create make-work jobs for Canadians. But, after 178 years, the Marxists still haven’t figured out how to make a planned economy work. Even the Red Chinese had to incorporate aspects of free trade into their economy, or that regime would have toppled years ago.
Perhaps Carney will import some economic advisors from China to help him out of this quagmire that he caused for himself (and the poor bastards who are his subjects). Meanwhile, if Carney is to be the new Messiah of the EU, then they need to quickly plan a rescue operation, so that Carney can be promoted even higher than his current level of incompetence, before his reputation becomes irreparable.
How can the Canadian govt insist a private company stay open when they are losing business and therefore money to stay open? Doesn’t sound like a free nation to me.
I am reminded of a company in Toledo back in the 1980’s.
It had pled with its labor force to accept only a small increase in wages, as it was near bankruptcy.
The union claimed that the company was hiding profits.
The company opened its accounting books and all financial records.
The union claimed that the company was still hiding money and went out on strike.
The company went bankrupt and closed down.
The next part I am not making up!
For two years, the union paid people to picket the closed, chained, defunct, shuttered, non-operating factory! “UNFAIR! REAL WAGES FOR REAL WORK!”
Completely surreal!
It was as if they were demonstrating for the prosecution of a criminal…at his grave in the cemetery!
I seem to recall several companies at that time, but this one was an auto parts supplier, wasn’t it?
That sounds like a mini “mass formation psychosis.” Unreal is right.
Happened other places too. One place I know the union won a 5 cent raise only to have the plant closed in less than a month. There was unquestionably “greed” on the company part (who runs a company to lose money?), but it ultimately didn’t matter.
It isn’t a free nation. It’s only masquerading as one. The evidence speaks more loudly than the rhetoric.
I bet Canada will broker a take over of that plant(s) and give them to the ChiComms.
No bet: that is 100% guaranteed!
The goal from the beginning, I’d think.
Seems it’s one bad news day after the next for Canada since they (openly) cozied up to the EU.
Next up: Canada will nationalize the steel industry
Cleveland Cliffs looks like a going concern.
I’d be reluctant to bet against them.
Short video if interested
[video src="https://www.clevelandcliffs.com/_assets/_241d5ca0b6e98c090f28938e13d6f6dd/clevelandcliffs/db/1155/11137/file/19124a2ab6b39e77bdeb23144599322f.mp4" /]
It would be very encouraging to hear right now that records amounts of cash have been withdrawn from TD (Toronto Dominion) Bank accounts. We would then have reason to believe that Canadian citizens did learned something from recent confrontations with “their” government.
The Canadians have become a bunch of chumps, Carney will destroy that country. Keep your elbows up ,I am sure those elbows up will fill those empty stomachs. One thing is for sure I have zero respect for any of you after all of your trash talk about our president and are country. Keep following that fat fu_k Doug Ford and that liberal loser Carney. Pucker and get ready to kiss that Chinese ass!!!