TORONTO — Pierre Poilievre stood across from the Stelco works in Hamilton on Friday and told Industry Minister Mélanie Joly to file a lawsuit against the plant’s American owner at 5 a.m. Monday.He said Cleveland-Cliffs, when it bought Stelco, made a binding five-year commitment to keep unionized employment and retain the vast majority of non-union jobs, and that the Liberals approved the takeover on those terms. Joly has threatened to sue. Poilievre said she made the same threat to Stellantis a year ago and never filed it. “Enough theatre. We need results.”He said the suit should seek the workers’ paycheques, not a paper penalty. The remedies he named were reinstating the workforce, getting production running again, or forcing a sale to a Canadian owner who would restart the plant. Asked about the company’s line that laid-off workers can live on employment insurance, he called it insulting. “These workers want paycheques. They don’t want to lose half their income to a temporary E.I. benefit.”.Stelco has said up to 500 workers can be affected as it idles finishing facilities in Hamilton and at Lake Erie. United Steelworkers Local 1005 has said about 350 of those are at the Hamilton plant, with the wind-down set to begin Friday. Poilievre also cited what he put at about 1,000 jobs lost at Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie.He named Michael Guglielmin, the Vaughan—Woodbridge MP and a 22-year steel operator, as senior adviser on steel and chair of a Conservative steel caucus. Guglielmin said his family worked in the mills, and that a slowdown at a producer hits the service centres and the workers down the chain. Poilievre’s team said Jordan Williams, a father of two laid off from Stelco, was handed a letter and told to wait for a possible recall, with no word on whether one is coming.Poilievre said the carbon tax could cost a plant like Stelco as much as $500 million, and that Carney wants it six times higher than under Justin Trudeau.He said the Cleveland-Cliffs chief executive had said the jobs could come back if there is a deal, the deal Carney promised by the summer of 2025.
