If you are interested in Canada’s national news, you have probably heard that Stelco, the large steelmaker in Hamilton, Ontario, has shut down its Hamilton operations and laid off 300 to 350 employees, plus more in other Canadian towns. Our federal government is threatening legal action against the current owners because of what the government says were legal commitments when they purchased the plant a few years ago.
In its response to the legal threat, the company has said they will take the government on in court, but it isn’t that which is interesting. What is interesting is that along with the statement that they would fight in court, the company CEO also said his company would sell the mill. Which, in most of our Canadian minds, might well say that the last thing he wants to do is fight Canada in court.
Incidentally, why should we in Golden, B.C. care what goes on in Hamilton, Ontario? We have our own issues, such as lumber tariffs, to be much more concerned about than steel tariffs in central Canada. And, in fact, 350 jobs in Hamilton are nothing compared to what we lost when the Donald Mill shut down in ’96. 200 jobs in Golden is a lot larger piece of bad news than 350 jobs in Hamilton.
But this is a different time.
This is a time when we are in a serious trade war with the U.S., and every move we make now can become a huge move in the overall trade issue. Each step we take in our response to the US is symbolic of our overall belief in our own future. The symbolism of Canadian actions in today’s trade environment can be worth more than what it is in today’s dollars. I have always said that, of course, the U.S. has every right to trade with whoever they want. Maybe that’s Canada, maybe it’s somebody else. And, similarly, we have the right to trade with whoever we want to, maybe the U.S., maybe somebody else.
A win for Canada in the US trade war is not to get a relaxation on one tariff or even two or three. Rather, it’s to reduce our reliance on the US as a trading partner. It’s not what Trump or any of the other American politicians say or don’t say; it’s what we do ourselves, on our own side of the border. It’s what we do to make ourselves attractive trading partners with other countries. And we should do it with as little bad blood as possible with the US. Let them do what they want with their tariffs and do our own thing with our resources, our infrastructure and our relationships with other countries
We know we operate from a reasonably strong position. We have the resources. We have the raw materials for steel, the trees for lumber, the electricity to process aluminum (processing aluminum takes huge amounts of electricity). We have the potash, we have the uranium, we have the rare minerals.
We know that nobody is going to be knocking on the steel company CEO’s door wanting to buy a plant that they shut down. Who would be when steel shipments to the States are highly tariffed? That will drive the price for the plant down, and our federal government should then quietly buy it with one purpose in mind: to sell it to private Canadian steel industry interests. Certainly not to keep it in government hands; we all know that governments can’t run a lemonade stand.
They should craft a deal which gives a new company a good chance of succeeding, perhaps with some kind of short- to mid-term guarantees of some kind. Perhaps marketing assistance, perhaps helping the company to retool to some extent, likely accompanied by re-training to an even greater extent. But Stelco has been an iconic piece of the Canadian industrial landscape for decades. Saving it and bringing it back to Canadian ownership sends a signal that Canada cares about its future and is going to make sure it has a good one.
Buying Stelco would send two signals. One, a signal to the US that we can stand on our own feet. And secondly, it would send a signal to ourselves with the same message. After all, if we don’t believe in ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to? Then we should carry on building the infrastructure that we need to turn our country into a strong trading nation.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that we are in a different era than we’ve been in in the past. He’s right. And waiting for Donald Trump to retire is no solution. Others have caught his cold, and whether he is succeeded by a Republican or a Democrat, his style will likely be copied by others.
So we should buy Stelco, establish our own steel industry. Build the pipelines. Build the ports. Build the mines. Build Canada. A Canada where we are not vulnerable to any other nation, including our good friends, the Americans.
