OTTAWA
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly says she will meet with the leadership of Stelco and its parent company, Cleveland-Cliffs, only if the steelmaker first recalls all laid-off workers.
In a letter to Stelco president Paul Simon dated Thursday, Joly said she wanted to see a "concrete and credible" plan to return workers to their jobs before she would meet with Simon and Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves.
"My message to [Goncalves] is, first, bring back the jobs and then we'll meet. I want a plan, I want a timeline. And I'm serious about it," Joly told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.
She said the plan to re-engage workers would form the basis of a conversation about the company's compliance with the Investment Canada Act.
Joly also demanded the company bring all laid-off employees back to work "immediately."
On Wednesday, Goncalves said in a statement that he hoped to return all 175 laid-off workers to their jobs by Christmas if the company's plan to boost its Canadian sales is successful.
The letter is the latest in a public dispute between the federal government and the American owners of the Hamilton steel plant since the layoffs were announced last month.
The government says Cleveland-Cliffs agreed in undertakings under the Investment Canada Act to keep the number of unionized Stelco employees at 2024 levels through to 2029 when it bought the company for $3.4 billion.
Last week, Joly gave Cleveland-Cliffs 15 days to reverse its layoffs before taking the company to court. e2gold.ca reported last week that the minister warned of potential monetary penalties or a forced divestiture.
Goncalves and Simon have maintained that the company is in compliance, saying the layoffs are necessary due to high U.S. tariffs on steel products, weak demand and competition from imports.
Earlier this week, the company said it had performed an "exhaustive review" of its obligations and determined it was in full compliance.
But Joly said in her latest letter she was not satisfied with the evidence in that report, saying it "repeatedly asserts compliance" without giving enough proof.
"I find the report far from satisfactory," Joly wrote. "Assertions of compliance are not a substitute for the information and evidence necessary to establish compliance."
She said she would need to see data and documents that fully address the issues she had laid out in a previous letter.
On Wednesday, Joly said she had contacted government lawyers about comments made by Goncalves a day before on CBC's Power & Politics, which she called "confessions" about his reason for buying Stelco.
Goncalves said in the interview that he bought Stelco because its products were "undercutting our prices in the United States."
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Joly pointed out that Goncalves previously voiced support for U.S. President Trump's tariffs on Canadian steel and said he must now "face the consequences."
"The commitment is clear: they had a commitment to keep 100 per cent of the jobs, and they haven't, so they need to," she said, adding that the company will face the "full forces of the law" if it fails to do so.
The president of United Steelworkers Local 1005, Ron Wells, confirmed that the layoffs have been contained to the Hamilton plant, though Stelco's Lake Erie Works site could also be affected.
Wells has accused Cleveland-Cliffs of using the layoffs to pressure Ottawa into tightening restrictions on foreign steel imports.
This story was written by the e2gold.ca newsroom from reporting by CBC News, Yahoo News, CTV News and Global News. Quotes are checked word for word against that reporting.