Hamilton-based steelmaker Stelco says it will go ahead with 300 to 350 layoffs — even after the federal government threatened legal action if it cuts the jobs.
The layoffs at Stelco Hamilton Works come amid a grinding U.S.-Canada trade war. Ottawa gave Stelco's American owner five business days to produce a plan to protect the jobs or face court action, calling it a test of how foreign investors are held to account.
Stelco's answer, in effect: we're cutting anyway. Union leaders say layoffs are already rolling out over three-week windows, with workers learning their fate in waves.
Hamilton is Toronto's industrial sibling — what hits the Hammer echoes up the QEW. Steel jobs pay mortgages in neighbourhoods where drill and trap artists grew up; when a plant sheds 300 paycheques, the whole block feels it, from the corner store to the studio booked with overtime money.
There's a bigger question Prime Minister Mark Carney now owns: if Ottawa can't stop an American owner from cutting Canadian steel jobs, what does "protecting workers" actually mean in a trade war?
Sources: CBC News. Toronto context from the Young Hadene newsroom.
Between 300 and 350 positions at Stelco Hamilton Works, according to the company and union.
Legal action if Stelco's U.S. owner fails to produce a plan protecting the jobs within five business days.