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Canada’s industry minister says she called the department’s lawyers after the head of Stelco’s American parent company told CBC News that he only bought the Hamilton steelmaker to stop it undercutting his production facilities in the U.S..
“The last words by the president of Stelco definitely made us contact our lawyers to see what could be the consequences of such confessions,” Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Wednesday.
The minister’s comments come after Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves told CBC’s Power & Politics Tuesday evening that the Hamilton company was “undercutting our prices in the United States.”
“I bought Stelco because I could not afford anymore having Stelco flooding the market here in the United States to the detriment of my own company,” he told host David Cochrane.
The CEO’s comments come after Cleveland-Cliffs responded to Joly’s recent demands that it reverse layoffs announced last month or face potential legal action.
The government says the company agreed to keep the number of unionized Stelco employees at 2024 levels through to 2029 when the purchase was made.
In a letter to the company last week, Joly said if the company does not honour its agreement with the federal government it would pursue a remedy in the courts. That step, the letter said, could include asking that financial penalties be imposed on the company or an order requiring Cleveland-Cliffs to divest from Stelco.
With the federal government locked in a showdown with Stelco over its layoffs in Hamilton, Power & Politics speaks to the American owner of the steel plant about whether this standoff could wind up in the courtroom.
Goncalves’s company maintains that it’s in “full compliance” with the obligations it made under the Investment Canada Act when it bought the steelmaker in 2024.
The CEO told Power & Politics that he “takes exception” with the notion that he should have to divest from Stelco, saying that, for now, “the company is not for sale,” but that will change.
“I will sell the company after we operate the company for a while — and now that I know that I’m persona non grata in Canada, I will do that,” he said.
He later said: “Give me another year. I’ll make money, sell the company.… [The] minister of industry is not a realtor of companies, and if she is, go sell some other company. This company has an owner, its Cleveland-Cliffs.”
