Industry Minister Melanie Joly says she’s open to meeting the top executives at Stelco’s parent company, but only if it recalls laid off workers. “The workers who have been laid off or received layoff notices must be recalled immediately,” she wrote in a letter to Stelco’s president and general counsel, Paul Simon. “Accordingly, I expect Stelco and Cleveland-Cliffs to provide a concrete and credible plan for the re-engagement of those workers,” she also wrote. Cleveland-Cliffs, which owns Stelco, announced last month that it would eliminate 500 jobs and close part of its plant in Hamilton, Ont. Cleveland-Cliffs pointed at U.S. tariffs, a weak demand for Canadian steel and competition from imported steel products as the reasons for the layoffs, which have already impacted as many as 175 workers as of Wednesday. The president of United Steelworkers Local 1005, Ron Wells, confirmed that those layoffs have been contained to the Hamilton plant, though Stelco’s Lake Erie Works site could also come into play. Wells has accused Cleveland-Cliffs of using the layoffs to pressure Ottawa into tightening restrictions on foreign steel imports. When Cleveland-Cliffs acquired Stelco for $3.4 billion in 2024, it did so upon signing a five-year-long undertaking with the federal government to maintain the same number of unionized employees. Asked at a press conference in Montreal on Thursday if it was a mistake to allow the U.S. company to buy Stelco, Prime Minister Mark Carney said “the mistake here would be Cleveland-Cliffs not respecting the obligations, (and) the commitments that they made in the acquisition.” Carney told reporters that he would not answer any further questions about Stelco, then added that a “legal process is underway.” Last week, Joly demanded that the company address alleged violations of those commitments under the Investment Canada Act, including employment guarantees, or face potential legal action. In a statement to The Canadian Press on Wednesday, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. CEO Lourenco Goncalves said he hopes to bring laid-off Stelco workers back before Christmas if a plan to boost domestic sales is successful. “It will depend on Canadian customers buying Canadian steel, made by Stelco,” Goncalves said. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Joly pointed out that Goncalves previously voiced support for U.S. President Trump’s tariffs on Canadian steel and said he must now “face the consequences.” “The commitment is clear: they had a commitment to keep 100 per cent of the jobs, and they haven’t, so they need to,” she said, adding that the company will face the “full forces of the law” if it fails to do so. “What does the law say? There is a potential forced divestiture option. If they don’t do the work, we’ll do ours, and we’re fighting to keep the jobs, and I know very much right now that there is a market in Canada.” With files from The Canadian Press
