Ontario Premier Doug Ford acknowledged that his government was aware that massive layoffs at Algoma Steel were imminent, well before the province agreed to loan the company $100 million in taxpayer funds.
The steel giant announced Monday it would lay off roughly 1,000 workers as a Sault Ste. Marie plant closure is being made to adapt to a “fundamentally altered” landscape in the face of tariffs from the United States.
“As part of the closure of its blast furnace and coke making operations, Algoma has made the difficult decision to issue approximately 1,000 layoff notices today, effective in 16 weeks on March 23, 2026,” the company said in a statement.
It went on to say the decision to close the plant and lay off workers was “necessary” given what it described as “extraordinary and external market forces.”
Weeks earlier, at the end of September, the Ontario and federal governments had partnered to loan Algoma a total of $500 million, 20 per cent of which was put up by the Ford government.
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“This direct support will help Algoma pivot its operations away from U.S. dependent markets and remain a commercially viable and economically stable source of jobs, growth and opportunity in Northern Ontario,” the government said when it made the announcement.
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On Wednesday, however, Premier Doug Ford said the federal and provincial governments were informed by the company that hundreds of steelworkers were about to lose their jobs – a fact the government failed to disclose to the public.
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“What the CEO told us [there] would be a dramatic change if we didn’t put [funding] in. It’d be a lot more than a thousand people,” Ford told Global News at Queen’s Park.
Ford referred to Algoma Steel as the “titanic,” which he said was “sinking up there,” and the government had limited choices to pursue.
“We either save, you know, two-thirds or we don’t save anything,” Ford said. “And I believe in saving the company up there, allocating funds to keep them going.”
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When asked whether additional jobs could have been saved if the governments offered a larger loan, Ford referred Global News to Algoma Steel.
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Ford added that, without the taxpayer funds, “I don’t think that plant would be standing right now.”
Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, Vic Fedeli, insisted the idea that layoffs would eventually come to Algoma Steel was a widely known fact.
“The investment that we made in Algoma was necessary, first of all, just to keep the doors open, to make sure that they’re available to be open today,” he said. “We saw the union say they knew these lay-offs were coming because of the electric arc furnace.”
Fedeli did not say exactly when Algoma had confirmed to the government layoffs were on the way.
“All of the unions, everybody has known for a long time that these layoffs wouldn’t be coming eventually,” he said.
Opposition critics, however, accused the government of handing money out without setting strict enough terms.
“The government did not do that; they refused to attach strings,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said. “And here we are. They have known this was coming for years.”
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