New federal program aims to boost domestic market for steel

Filed 2w ago · Via thesudburystar.com · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jack de Nijs for Anefo · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The federal government launched a $100 million Commodities Sectoral Support Program on August 10, rebating 50 percent of rail and marine transportation costs for Canadian steel moved between provinces, for up to a year or until the money runs out. Transportation Minister Steven MacKinnon announced it in Hamilton, framing it as help for businesses wanting to buy and use Canadian materials.

The program follows November 2025 measures aimed at protecting steel and softwood lumber by making interprovincial freight cheaper. Sault-Algoma MP Terry Sheehan says it should help steelmakers like Algoma Steel — which declined to comment — offset losses from U.S. tariffs by making domestic bids more competitive.

The rollout coincides with reports that Canadian and U.S. officials are assembling a trade deal to present to Trump before his latest tariff deadline, seeking relief on steel, aluminum, auto and lumber tariffs. Trump declined to renew CUSMA in its current form in July.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Spending $100 million to make it cheaper for Canadian steel to reach Canadian buyers is a tidy admission that the country's own internal trade friction has been doing almost as much damage as the tariffs from south of the border. Calling it 'a promise kept' is generous when the promise was mostly to fix a problem Ottawa helped leave unfixed for years.

Source: Read the original at thesudburystar.com → Scored: Super Circus · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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