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<\/p>\nAs more Hamilton steel workers receive layoff notices from the U.S.-owned plant Stelco, one legal expert is raising the possibility of nationalization, which could see the federal government take ownership of the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key question, ultimately, is could different management do better,\u201d Nicolas Lamp, associate professor at the faculty of law and school of policy studies at Queens University, told CBC Hamilton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lamp questioned whethers Stelco was acting in the best interests of its Canadian workers or had an interest in the U.S. trade war against Canada. <\/p>\n
\u201cClearly there’s a conflict of interest here in the case of the CEO \u2026 or his perspective on the issue is at least distorted by the fact that he also has U.S. operations who are benefiting from the tariffs. So taking these factors together, the moment of uncertainty that we’re in, the fact that we can’t really trust the CEO, that made me think of that [nationalizing] as an option.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lamp says that Ottawa should consider stepping in before talent within the steel industry is displaced, adding that layoffs are difficult to reverse if individuals move away, relocate, retrain or retire.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd at the moment when Canada is trying to build a lot of infrastructure, major plants, major projects, it’s really a question of whether Canada should just let all that expertise kind of die.\u201d<\/p>\n
Layoffs at Hamilton’s Stelco steel plant are already underway and are expected to impact between 300 to 350 employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ron Wells, president of United Steelworkers Local 1005, says he\u2019s open to the idea of nationalization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not sure how it would work, but I don’t think it would be a bad thing,\u201d he told CBC Hamilton, pointing to Canada\u2019s other crown corporations like CN and Canada Post as examples.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stelco owner under pressure from legal deadline<\/p>\n
The nationalization discussion is happening as Ottawa threatens legal action against Cleveland-Cliffs, which acquired Stelco in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Monday, Industry Minster M\u00e9lanie Joly gave the company five business days to submit a plan on how it would keep its commitments to maintain Canadian jobs under the Investment Canada Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government of Canada takes compliance with undertakings seriously,\u201d Joly wrote in the letter, obtained by CBC News on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere an investor fails to comply with an undertaking, the act provides remedies for breaches, including an application to the superior court for orders that may include directing compliance, divestiture, or monetary penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trust that such steps will not be necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Sherbrooke, Que., yesterday where he was asked if the government would be willing to nationalize Stelco if Cleveland-Cliffs doesn\u2019t reverse the layoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a few days left to respond to the minister of industry’s letter,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’ll await that response and take appropriate action afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
NDP MP Don Davies calls steel vital to Canada\u2019s sovereignty and national security, and believes nationalization is worthy of exploration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, we’re not making basketballs here. We’re talking about steel that is the foundation of our country. So it’s an option. It has to be looked at,\u201d Davies told reporters at Parliament Hill on Thursday. <\/p>\n
He also said that he thinks the Cleveland-Cliffs takeover should never have been approved under the Investment Canada Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How would nationalization work?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lamp says that government ownership of Stelco is one potential outcome from Ottawa\u2019s legal threat to Cleveland-Cliffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joly\u2019s letter includes reference to court-ordered divestiture, which could force Stelco to sell the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally there would be a private buyer who would pick it up,\u201d Lamp said. \u201cBut if not, given the moment of uncertainty that we’re in, that might be an opportunity for the Canadian government to step in and say, \u2018Okay, we’re going to buy it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lamp pointed to the purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan in 2018 as an example of the federal government gathering major infrastructure from a private company.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not saying we should definitely nationalize it,\u201d he said. \u201cI would say that the Canadian government really has to look very closely at what the reasons for these layoffs are and whether a company that was more sympathetic, that had the Canadian workers and also the Canadian national interest in mind, would act similarly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the professional fate of 500 steel workers remains in limbo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WATCH | Stelco worker speaks out as layoffs begin at Hamilton plant:<\/p>\n
‘This is scary times,’ says laid-off Stelco worker | Hanomansing Live<\/p>\n
Stelco has begun handing out layoff notices at its Hamilton steel plant. This is the first wave of job cuts expected to unfold over the next three weeks. Mike Watt, one of the laid-off Stelco employees, says he doesn’t know who to blame for this.<\/p>\n
Cleveland-Cliffs has stated the layoffs are necessary to \u201censure the survival\u201d of the company in a tough market, but Wells says he believes that motivations are political.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think it’s politically motivated because of the midterms coming up in the States and because the CEO of Cleveland Cliffs is trying to pressure the Canadian government to make a trade deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he said he thinks the jobs could \u201cabsolutely\u201d return to Hamilton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust those statements from the CEO kind of proves our point that this was done to get a trade deal,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t think it was market driven.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lamp says there’s a risk in making permanent decisions about industry talent during unusual circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn law, we have the saying \u2018hard cases make bad law\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wouldn’t want to make a long-term decision about Canadian steel capacity that has permanent consequences under extraordinary circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that’s why there might be a reason for the government to step in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As more Hamilton steel workers receive layoff notices from the U.S.-owned plant Stelco, one legal expert is raising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-927702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}