Joly asks Competition Bureau to probe Cleveland-Cliffs

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly has asked the Competition Bureau to examine whether Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. acted in bad faith when it bought Stelco Inc., after the U.S. steelmaker’s chief executive said he bought the Hamilton company in part to stop it flooding the American market, The Canadian Press reported on Friday, Nov. 6.

The request came on the same day Ottawa’s 15-day deadline expired for Cleveland-Cliffs to address layoffs at Stelco’s Hamilton and Nanticoke, Ont., steel mills. It is the latest step in a month-long dispute that we have followed since Joly first warned of a forced sale.

In her letter to the competition commissioner, Joly pointed to testimony by Cleveland-Cliffs chief executive Lourenco Goncalves at a U.S. congressional hearing in January 2026, and to what he told CBC News’s Power & Politics last month. “I bought Stelco because I could not afford anymore having Stelco flooding the market here in the United States to the detriment of my own company,” Goncalves told the program, CBC News reported.

“If negotiations and acquisition were conducted in bad faith, Canadians deserve to know. The company needs to face the consequences,” Joly said in a statement. She called the comments a “shocking admission” for workers and for the government, and said the bureau “may wish to thoroughly examine” whether the company’s conduct warrants enforcement action under the Competition Act.

The bureau reviewed the takeover in 2024 and issued a no-action letter. Joly is now asking for more scrutiny “in light of new evidence regarding the intent of the firm’s conduct,” The Canadian Press reported. Cleveland-Cliffs did not respond to a request for comment from the news agency. The company has said it is in “full compliance” with the commitments it made under the Investment Canada Act, as we reported on Oct. 27.

Stelco announced on Sept. 28 that it planned to lay off up to 500 workers, citing U.S. tariffs, weak demand for Canadian steel and competition from imported steel. The company and the union have since confirmed that 175 workers have been laid off, all in Hamilton. The government says Cleveland-Cliffs agreed when it bought Stelco to keep the number of unionized employees at 2024 levels through 2029.

Ottawa has said that if the company does not meet those commitments, it could ask a court to order compliance, impose penalties of up to $10,000 a day or force a sale of Stelco. Last week Goncalves said he hoped to recall all laid-off workers before Dec. 25 if a plan to boost sales of Canadian-made steel to domestic customers succeeds, according to The Canadian Press. Joly had already rejected the company’s compliance report and demanded a recall.

Conservative MP Michael Guglielmin, who chairs the Conservative Steel Caucus and is a former steel industry executive, said the minister should have sued weeks ago. “It has now been 31 days since Minister Joly sent her first letter to Stelco, promising legal action if they didn’t reverse their layoffs,” he said, calling the Competition Bureau request a way of shifting accountability.

The Competition Bureau has not said whether it will open an examination. Federal steel measures are part of the $8.7-billion plan for steel, autos and mining that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced on Oct. 22.

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