The tightened tariff rate quotas for steel imports from non-free trade agreement partners will come into force on Dec. 26.
Jesse Cnockaert, The Hill Times
Ottawa’s plans to limit imports of foreign steel may also drive up the cost of electricity as wind towers become more costly, warn representatives of the renewable energy sector who are hurrying to voice their message to Ottawa before the measures come into force later this month.
“There’s a ton of urgency,” said Fernando Melo, senior director of public affairs and federal policy with the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA). “We are going very hard on this, but we’re also under time pressure.”
To help protect Canada’s steel industry—one of the most heavily hurt sectors during the current trade war with the United States—Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.) announced a plan on Nov. 26 to tighten the tariff rate quotas (TRQs) for steel imports from non-free trade agreement partners from 50 per cent to 20 per cent of 2024 levels.
TRQs are government-set limits on the amount of steel products that can enter this country each quarter without incurring a 50-per-cent surtax. By lowering the TRQ, even less steel will be able to enter Canada without the application of the surtax.
Canada will also impose a global 25-per-cent tariff on targeted imported steel-derivative products such as wind towers, prefabricated buildings, fasteners, and wires. The new measures will come into effect on Dec. 26.
Melo told The Hill Times that he’s concerned about the direct mention of “wind towers” in Carney’s announcement. He argued Canada does not have the domestic capacity to meet the needs of current and planned wind projects without some foreign inputs because Canada only has one domestic producer of wind turbine towers, which is based in Quebec.
“We have such a big country, and these are such large objects, that we can’t necessarily get them from point A to point B, when point B is in British Colombia … because that manufacturer is in Quebec,” he said.
“With a tariff immediately applied to these [towers] … we’re about to see massive price spikes to the point where no one can make any money, and we’re about to have layoffs because these projects won’t go forward.”
The renewable energy industry secures its supply chains years before projects are built, which means towers ordered years ago will be on the hook if their costs jump up because of tariffs, according to Melo.
CanREA is urging Ottawa to create a remission process for projects that are contracted and under construction, and for those that are being submitted to Ontario’s LT2 procurement process by Dec. 18.
“It’s largely just so that we have time as an industry to pivot and be able to address that,” he said.
“We’re asking for them to be thoughtful in how this tariff is applied, and to work with industry on developing a better understanding of the domestic supply chain and opportunities there.”
CanREA is represented on the federal lobbyists’ registry by consultants Roberto Chávez, Vanessa Lamarre, and Teodora Durca of Sussex Strategy, and in-house by Vittoria Bellissimo, the firm’s president and CEO.
Steel industry in crisis during trade war
Since Carney was sworn in as prime minister this past March, the organization that’s communicated with him the most has been ArcelorMittal Dofasco, a steel fabricator in Hamilton, Ont. ArcelorMittal Dofasco filed nine reports for communications with Carney between March 28 and Oct. 4, according to the lobbyists’ registry.
Other groups related to steel that have communicated with Carney include the Canadian Steel Producers Association, which communicated with him on Oct. 25; Sorel Forge, a Quebec steel distributor, which communicated with him on July 15, on July 30 and on Aug. 20; and with United Steelworkers, which communicated with Carney on July 16.
Canada’s steel industry has been hit hard by a 50-per-cent tariff on steel and aluminum imposed by the White House. Trade talks have been stalled since October, when U.S. President Donald Trump was angered by an anti-tariff ad, sponsored by the Ontario government and featuring the voice of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, that aired on American television.
The Hill Times reached out to ArcelorMittal Dofasco and to the CSPA to ask for the latest on how the industry is faring under the tariff war, and their asks of the federal government, but interviews could not be arranged before deadline.
Following Carney’s November announcement, Unifor—Canada’s largest union in the private sector, representing 320,000 workers—issued a press release calling the measures a welcome step, but cautioned that “they must translate into immediate supports that stabilize jobs today while preparing our industries for the future.”
Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president, told The Hill Times in an emailed statement on Dec. 10 Ontario’s anti-tariff TV ad was “just one more excuse for President Trump to dodge negotiating a fair deal.”
“The pause in talks also paused the sector-by-sector negotiation tactic pushed by the U.S., an approach Unifor warned would surrender critical leverage and leave workers in targeted sectors exposed as auto and lumber were being left out of those sector negotiations,” said Payne in the email, adding that Canada should not rush into an agreement it could later regret.
“Our message has never wavered: no deal is better than a bad deal that harms the industrial economy of Canada and fails to protect Canadian workers and their jobs. We are also seeing the impact of Trump’s tariffs, which are now hurting the U.S. economy, especially the manufacturing sector. The economic damage to American businesses, workers, farmers, and consumers is becoming harder to ignore,” said Payne.
In the domestic steel industry’s recent signal of woes, Algoma Steel, a steel production firm in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., confirmed on Dec. 1 a plan to lay off approximately 1,000 staff effective March 23, 2026, as it permanently shuts down its blast furnace and coke-making operations.
United Steelworkers condemned Algoma’s layoffs in a Dec. 4 press release, calling the news “an embarrassment for the federal government” because of support the company received from Ottawa. In September, the Liberal government announced $400-million in loans to Algoma Steel, which go along with an additional $100-million from the Ontario government.
“This must be a lesson that we never forget: when governments sign agreements to support industry, they must ensure transparent commitments to job security and job growth,” said Marty Warren, national director of United Steelworkers, in the press release.
Meg Gingrich, United Steelworkers’ administrative assistant to the national director, who leads tariff and trade efforts, told The Hill Times that her group’s advocacy messages to Ottawa at this time include finding ways to protect the domestic market. She also said that greater clarity is needed when it comes to federal government support for specific companies.
“While we supported the injections of cash essentially to keep [Algoma Steel] operating, the lack of any transparency or accountability over any conditions that were attached to that—that’s something that’s a real problem for us,” she said.
“Our understanding is these layoffs were probably coming at some point, but we wanted measures in there to ensure that they would be done through attrition, that … as many people would remain employed as possible. And it was done completely in secret, and we have no sense of what was agreed to there.”
If the federal government is handing out millions of dollars to support steel companies, Gingrich argued conditions should be attached, such as employment guarantees in order to protect jobs.
“Some of those things would be protected under the collective agreement, but we’d want to ensure that they’re really prioritizing rehiring people in the community and trying to minimize any sort of disruption to … the community or to the membership,” she said.
Full article available here for The Hill Times subscribers.