In a letter to Cleveland Cliffs sent Wednesday, Joly accused the company of the violating the terms of their 2024 agreement with the government to purchase Stelco
Industry Minister Melanie Joly is giving Stelco’s parent company 15 days to reverse layoffs at its sites in southern Ontario or risk a possible forced sales of their Canadian holdings.
In a letter to Cleveland Cliffs sent Wednesday, Joly accused the company of the violating the terms of their 2024 agreement with the government to purchase Stelco. She said the company was failing to honour its pledges to maintain existing employment levels until 2029 and advocate for a Canadian exemption for U.S. steel tariffs, as well as breaking promises on facilitating shipments and charitable giving and co-op opportunities.
Joly said Stelco had 15 days to honour those terms or the government would apply to the courts to impose penalties, which could include fines or a forced sale.
Cleveland Cliffs signed the agreement under the terms of the Investment Canada Act, which gives Ottawa the ability to prohibit or set conditions for foreign acquisitions of key Canadian assets.
The company said that it never agreed to maintain employment levels from 2024 and had to resort to layoffs because of punishing U.S. tariffs and Canada’s unwillingness to stop foreign countries from dumping galvanized and rolled steel into the market.
However, the company’s CEO Lourenco Goncalves has publicly applauded the Trump’s administration steel levies.
Stelco announced earlier this month that it was planning to lay off up to 500 workers at its Hamilton and Lake Erie facilities.
The federal government said it had offered financial assistance to avoid the job losses, and Joly quickly demanded that Cleveland-Cliffs come up with a plan by this week to reverse the layoffs or face penalties.
When asked by iPolitics on Wednesday why the government hadn’t already filed a suit, Prime Minister Mark Carney said there’s a process that must be followed and he’s hoping the company will come to the table to work out a deal.
“There’s a legal process that we’re following… There there are a set of steps that we’re taking in the right order,” he said.
“We’ve given due notice in other aspects… [and] there’s also an opportunity for the company to respect their respect their commitments. Of course, we’re happy to sit down and work with them.”