A steel plant in Ontario laid off 1,000 workers, and more than 3,000 more in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario could be affected by the cuts. Meanwhile, the Bloc quits on climate change, and questions are being asked about the deal between Canada and Alberta on carbon capture and other carbon capture.
00:02:03.160Yeah, so we heard Pierre Polyav and his first English comments there in question period questioning the liberals on these layoffs at Algoma Steel.
00:02:12.0801,000 layoff notices, as you mentioned there, Andrew.
00:02:15.080Algoma Steel saying it's necessary to protect the company's future in light of these extraordinary conditions and the Trump tariffs.
00:02:23.380Algoma recently got $400 million from the federal government along with $100 million from the provincial Ontario government
00:02:30.420in loans to protect jobs in the face of these tariffs.
00:06:43.480So how expected were these layoffs, though, given what we know about demand for Canadian steel and this transition to these new furnaces?
00:06:53.600Well, the transition and the tariffs are sort of linked in the sense that you've had the story before that Algoma is in the lead of moving away from these blast furnaces, electric furnaces for environmental reasons.
00:07:34.960If only we had a responsible government that went down to the USA to actually negotiate, not to put their elbows up and pretend like they're negotiating to then come home and then, no, to actually negotiate.
00:07:48.520How about we remove all our tariffs, all of them, because there's some sneaky little tariffs in there to protect the Quebec dairy cartel.
00:07:56.460How about we remove all of those and we actually have free and open trade with the Americans?
00:08:01.500I bet you that if that happened, and my first clue is the fact that Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, has been saying it and saying it over and over again.
00:08:48.940And then, Peter, I wanted to just ask you what we just heard from the opposition leader, the conservative leader, Pierre Polyev in the House of Commons.
00:08:55.320He said the industrial carbon tax will kill even more Canadian steel jobs.
00:09:11.680You're disincentivizing businesses from growing, from expanding, from hiring more people when you impose a new tax, particularly a tax as dumb as the carbon tax.
00:09:23.760Well, I think that's a political statement that I'm not, I mean.
00:09:30.720But, of course, the CBC is going to bring in some guy that they pay to, you know, be against whatever conservative people say.
00:09:38.520They're going to bring the guy that says, no, carbon taxes are actually good for jobs.
00:09:43.280The more you tax businesses, the more they create jobs.
00:09:47.360That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
00:09:49.140The new system of getting these electric furnaces involved adjustments to carbon prices or prices embedded in steel products.
00:09:59.540So this is not new news that that's part of a, it's not a political accusation.
00:10:06.260But it won't, that won't succeed unless other countries go to this carbon tax.
00:10:10.420Now, we also know that there is a $500 million loan that was given to, well, federal and provincial, but mostly federal money, federal dollars, given to Algoma to try and, I guess, transition and to safeguard these jobs.
00:10:24.380So how can, you know, what about that money in terms of trying to protect Canadian steel worker jobs?
00:10:30.980Well, that is, was going to, that was going into, or it has been going into doing this business of the furnaces, the technology, you know, the electric furnaces coming in.
00:10:42.440And it also, the government has also, because of the short-term cash crunch, because of the tariffs, loaned additional money.
00:10:50.020It's just all of this is jammed into the same short-term box.
00:10:53.380That's why we're now in this position of having to deal with all of this with a gun to our head.
00:10:59.380So we just lost a thousand jobs here in Canada, even though our government gave this company $500 million.
00:11:06.220Mark Carney still has no deal with the United States.
00:11:09.380In one of his latest press conferences, he said, who cares, whatever.
00:11:13.940And I guess that's the attitude that's going to get us a deal with Donald Trump, saying, who cares?
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