I was born and raised in Sault Saint Marie Ontario (the Soo). Back in the day, Algoma steel was the largest employer in the Soo. At one time, Algoma steel employed 10,000 people. During university I worked there in the summers, making good money helping pay for university, with the help of the bank of mom and dad.
With ongoing technology in production of steel, and with fierce competition from countries, such as Japan, the workforce, at Algoma has been reduced to the current number of 2700, forcing the city to diversify.
Then, this year, Donald Trump declared economic war on Canada. Algoma has been hit big time. Algoma announced, yesterday, that it will be laying off 1000 workers, effective next March. A nice big kick in the teeth just before Christmas.
Back a couple months ago, the federal government and the Ontario provincial government, announced that they would be giving $500 million in loans to Algoma to help adjust its steel production operations in response to the Trump tariffs.
Algoma will be adopting a new technology called Electric Arc Furnace steel making. In order to do so, Algoma made a couple of drastic shifts in current steelmaking.
“As part of the closure of its blast furnace and coke making operations, Algoma has made the difficult decision to issue approximately 1,000 layoff notices today, effective in 16 weeks on March 23, 2026.”
“This transition is necessary to protect Algoma’s future in the face of these extraordinary and external market forces, and we will continue to advocate for a competitive and fair trading environment for Canadian steel.”
Those are nice words. But, to the 1000 who are going to be laid off soon, it means diddly squat.
The Soo has been knocked down before, with the decrease in employment, from 10,000 to under 3000, at Algoma, and with the closure of its papermill, Abitibi. But this is going to be a hard one to recover from.
That is all I have for today.