Joly sends Stelco owner's testimony to Competition Bureau, testing Canada's hold on foreign buyers

On the day her 15-day compliance deadline expired, Industry Minister Melanie Joly asked Canada's competition watchdog to examine whether Cleveland-Cliffs bought Stelco in bad faith. Her letter asks the Competition Bureau whether the Ohio company's conduct calls for enforcement action under the Competition Act.

The request rests on the company's own words. In January 2026, chief executive Lourenco Goncalves told the Congressional Steel Caucus: "We blocked Stelco from selling steel into the U.S. market." Ottawa has put that testimony side by side with a later national television interview. Joly's assessment is that the conduct is "highly questionable and may be reviewable under the Competition Act."

Two laws, two different questions

Ottawa now has two instruments pointed at the same company. The Investment Canada Act is about promises. Cleveland-Cliffs signed 34 written undertakings when it bought Stelco at $70 per share, including an average unionized workforce of at least 1,766 and a salaried workforce of at least 603.

On that ground, the company says it has an answer. It says an exhaustive review shows full compliance, calls the layoffs temporary, and hopes to bring Hamilton workers back before Christmas. It also points out that nothing requires a set employment level every single day. Averages can be argued over for months.

The Competition Act asks something else: whether a buyer took a rival off its own market. Joly's letter says the CEO's words show a disregard for fair competition and for the choice and affordability it is meant to deliver. The evidence is not a payroll spreadsheet. It is the executive's own voice on the record in two countries.

The date that does not fit

The timing in that testimony matters. Mr. Goncalves said the blocking began before President Trump was back in office. Mr. Trump returned on January 20, 2025. Canada had been exempt from U.S. steel tariffs from May 2019 until March 12, 2025, and the tariff reached 50 per cent that June.

By that account, Stelco's route into the American market was closed while Canadian steel still crossed the border tariff-free. That sits awkwardly beside the explanation Stelco gave workers on September 28, when it announced up to 500 layoffs and named American tariffs first, then weak demand and imported steel. The company and the union both put the number laid off so far at 175, all in Hamilton.

Both accounts cannot be the whole story. A union voice put the mood plainly: "We feel we've been betrayed by Cleveland Cliffs."

What a middle power can do

Canada cannot set Washington's tariff rates. It can set the terms for anyone who wants to own a piece of its industrial base, and it can hold them to those terms before its own regulators and courts. That is the real significance of this week.

There are limits, and they should be stated plainly. A minister's letter is a request, not an investigation, and an investigation is not a verdict. The bureau already cleared this purchase with a no-action letter on October 9, 2024. It is not clear what tools it has left on a deal that closed two years ago. As of Friday, Ottawa had not announced a lawsuit.

The wider context sharpens the stakes. Mr. Goncalves also told lawmakers he was glad there was a good chance the USMCA would not survive the 2026 review, and said, "We need manufacturing in the United States, not in Canada, not in Mexico." The owner of a major Canadian steelmaker has said that on the record while the review is unresolved.

What to watch next

First, the acting commissioner of competition. She can open a formal inquiry or conclude that the 2024 clearance limits what her office can do now. Either answer will show how far Canadian competition law reaches into a buyer's stated intentions.

Second, the company's updated compliance report, which it has said it will file now that the reporting period has closed. Watch whether Ottawa answers it in federal court, where penalties or even a forced sale have been raised as possible outcomes.

Third, the Hamilton recall. For the 175 workers laid off, the number that counts is whether a return before Christmas comes with a date.

Every foreign buyer studying a Canadian company will be watching. The lesson Ottawa wants them to take is that conditions written into an approval are real, and that Canada will enforce them with every lever it has.