Tories Call For Legal Action Against US Steelmaker After Ottawa’s Five-Day Deadline Passes

The Conservative Party is calling on the federal government to sue the U.S. company that owns Hamilton-based steelmaker Stelco, after a five-day deadline for the company to submit a plan outlining how it would meet its employment commitments in Canada expired.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly wrote to Stelco president Paul Simon on Oct. 5, demanding that parent company Cleveland-Cliffs outline how it would honour its commitments to maintain Canadian employment. She warned that the government could pursue legal action if the company failed to comply. Stelco sent a response on Oct. 9 disputing the government’s position that the planned layoffs would breach its commitments.

Speaking to reporters outside of Hamilton’s Stelco plant on Oct. 14, Conservative MP Ned Kuruc said the federal government should now follow through on its threats to initiate legal action against Cleveland-Cliffs.

“The five-day window of Minister Joly’s letter has come and gone. This morning, I took a lot of phone calls from Stelco workers asking why legal action hasn’t taken place, and I’m asking myself the same question,” Conservative MP Ned Kuruc said.

Stelco announced on Sept. 28 that it would indefinitely idle finishing operations at its steel plant in Hamilton, Ont., citing “market uncertainty,” which could impact up to 500 employees. A union president said on Oct. 8 that some workers had received notices a day earlier telling them not to return to their next shift, and that up to 330 workers would be impacted by the layoffs.

Kuruc, the MP for Hamilton East–Stoney Creek, said the federal government could not “let another Stellantis happen,” referring to the automaker’s decision to move planned Jeep Compass production from Brampton, Ont., to the United States, impacting thousands of jobs.

Joly said in November 2025 that Ottawa was launching dispute settlement proceedings against Stellantis, but there has been no final resolution.

“Letters were thrown around back and forth, and 10 months later we have nothing,” Kuruc said of the Stellantis layoffs. “We cannot set precedents in this country, where foreign companies come to Canada and then just walk away from our workers. It’s time for legal action, and it’s time to protect the workers of Stelco.”

In Joly’s Oct. 5 letter, she said the proposed layoffs would violate binding employment commitments that Cleveland-Cliffs made when Ottawa approved its $3.4 billion acquisition of Stelco in 2024 under the Investment Canada Act.

Stelco’s Response

Stelco’s President Simon said in an Oct. 9 letter responding to Joly that Canadian exports of cold-rolled and coated steel to the United States had fallen by 58 percent due to 50 percent U.S. tariffs on steel, and that Stelco could not “continue to produce cold-rolled and coated steel products without incurring significant losses that are not sustainable.”

He argued that the layoffs do not violate the company’s binding employment commitments, which he said do not prohibit layoffs or require employment levels to remain above a specified number every day throughout the five-year period.

Simon also called Ottawa’s existing Canadian trade protections “woefully inadequate” to create a sustainable market that can support both the Canadian and U.S. steel industries. Joly previously said that Stelco had “explicitly chosen not to seek support” from federal programs designed to protect jobs vulnerable to U.S. tariffs.

Simon said Stelco had warned Ottawa in July that it might indefinitely idle its Hamilton operations. He said federal officials had suggested discussing revisions to the company’s employment commitments to account for the planned layoffs, but argued that Ottawa’s offer of funding to cover maintenance and capital costs in exchange for retaining workers was insufficient.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre introduced a plan on Oct. 9 that he argued would protect Canada’s steel industry amid U.S. trade tensions. The plan calls for enforcing employment commitments made by Stelco’s U.S. owner, Cleveland-Cliffs; cracking down on Chinese steel dumping; eliminating the industrial carbon tax; fast-tracking liquefied natural gas projects to boost demand for Canadian steel; and negotiating a tariff-free trade agreement with the United States. Poilievre also urged Ottawa to sue Cleveland-Cliffs over its planned layoffs.