Hamilton steelworkers didn’t need another strongly worded letter from Ottawa. They needed their jobs. Instead, the Carney government has handed Stelco’s American owner a second deadline after the first one came and went, and the layoffs went ahead anyway.
On October 22, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly gave Cleveland-Cliffs 15 days to address alleged violations of the promises it made when it bought Stelco, or face possible legal action. By then, the company had already laid off about 200 workers, with as many as 500 jobs on the chopping block across Hamilton Works and Lake Erie Works.
The first deadline didn’t work
This isn’t Ottawa’s first warning. Joly’s first letter, dated October 5, gave Stelco five business days to show how it would keep its job commitments. Stelco’s president answered on October 9 that the breach claim was false. The first layoffs took effect October 11.
So what did the government do when its bluff was called? It reset the clock, this time for 15 days. The new deadline lands in early November, more than a month after Cleveland-Cliffs announced the cuts on September 28.
Conservative MP Michael Guglielmin criticized the “shifting” timelines, pointing out that Joly had recently suggested a resolution was days away. Even the union that supports the minister’s letter is losing patience. “We just wish the process could be faster because unfortunately our members are on the street,” United Steelworkers Local 1005 president Ron Wells told The Canadian Press.
Ottawa knew there were problems a year ago
The most damning detail is buried in Joly’s own 11-page letter. According to The Canadian Press, the letter reveals that Cleveland-Cliffs acknowledged back in November 2025 that it had failed to meet two of its other undertakings: keeping co-op and summer student programs going, and supporting the community through charitable contributions.
In other words, the federal government has known for roughly a year that this company wasn’t keeping its word. It didn’t go public, and it didn’t escalate. It waited until hundreds of union jobs were already being cut before it started building a legal case.
A deal the public couldn’t even read
When the Liberal government approved the Cleveland-Cliffs takeover in 2024, it described the company’s commitments only in general terms. Canadians only learned the actual job floors this month, when Joly’s second letter quoted them: an annual average of at least 1,766 full-time-equivalent unionized workers and 603 salaried workers.
And look at how those promises were written. The floors measure average employment over a year, and the text doesn’t bar layoffs outright. Stelco has already told the minister that its undertakings don’t require it to avoid layoffs or keep the same staffing every day. If Ottawa ends up in court, it’ll be arguing over a deal its own side negotiated with that much wiggle room.
The warning signs were public
Cleveland-Cliffs never hid where its loyalties lie. CEO Lourenco Goncalves told the U.S. Congressional Steel Caucus in January, “I am glad that there is a good chance that the USMCA will not survive the 2026 review,” adding, “We need manufacturing in the United States. Not in Canada; not in Mexico.” He also boasted that Cliffs had blocked Stelco from selling steel into the U.S. market.
Joly’s letter now quotes those words back at him, and she told reporters, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” That’s a good line. But the testimony was given in January. It’s now late October. A government that was serious about protecting Hamilton’s steel jobs would have acted when a foreign owner openly cheered for manufacturing to leave Canada, not nine months later.
Tough talk, slow action
To be fair, the 15-day letter is a formal demand under Section 39 of the Investment Canada Act, a required step before Ottawa can go to court. Possible remedies include an order to comply, penalties of up to $10,000 a day, or a forced sale, which Joly says is “definitely on the table.”
But $10,000 a day is pocket change for a steel giant, and Goncalves has already told Bloomberg that a court will likely decide the dispute. Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said workers fear a “very long legal battle.” Meanwhile, the families affected need answers now, not after months of litigation.
This all comes the same week Prime Minister Mark Carney stood beside Premier Doug Ford to announce a $9-billion plan for steel and auto sectors hit by U.S. tariffs. Big announcements are easy. Making a foreign buyer keep its written promises to Canadian workers is the hard part, and so far this government hasn’t managed it.
The bottom line
The Stelco mess is a pattern Canadians have seen before from the Carney Liberals: vague commitments, missed warning signs, a deadline that passes, and then another deadline. Hamilton’s steelworkers deserved a government that enforced the deal before the pink slips went out. What they got was a letter, and then a second letter.
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