Steelworkers, others in Selkirk fearful of tariffs

WINNIPEG — Manitoba’s “Steeltown” may be the first community in the province to take a hit in the Canada-U.S. trade war after President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum take effect Wednesday.

People in Selkirk — a city of 15,000 with a steel industry that employs 800 — are getting nervous, said MLA Rick Perchotte, who has lived there 40 years.

“They’re extremely concerned that everything they’ve worked for could be lost very quickly in a very short period of time, which may cause them to look in other countries for employment and having to turn their back on Selkirk and Manitoba,” the Progressive Conservative MLA said Friday.

While the federal government rolled out a $6.5-billion aid package to support Canadian businesses through the trade war on Friday, the provincial government hasn’t said how it plans to support Manitoba workers, Perchotte said.

People employed by the steel industry and connected businesses in Selkirk need answers quick, he said.

“The people that I’m speaking with have told me they have not heard any plans from anybody,” said the MLA, who met Friday with some of the 400-plus employees of the Gerdau steel mill, which produces material used for snowplow blades, forklifts and elevator parts.

“The uncertainty, it keeps rolling downhill,” Perchotte said. “They do not know of any strategic plans other than, ‘we are going to fight these tariffs’ and ‘everybody keep their heads up.’”

Premier Wab Kinew has, so far, announced a three-month deferral of payroll and retail sales taxes for impacted businesses, joined other provinces in pulling U.S. booze off of provincially owned liquor-store shelves and draped a giant Canadian flag over the front of the Manitoba Legislative Building.

The March 20 provincial budget will include “actions to combat tariffs,” a government media bulletin said Friday.

Economic Development, Investment and Trade Minister Jamie Moses said Friday that although there’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to Trump’s tariff war, he’s not hearing concerns about layoffs from the Selkirk steel industry and labour leaders he met with this week.

“That’s not the message they’re saying right now,” Moses said in an interview.

“This is exactly why we’ve been planning and preparing for this for such a long time — so that we can have the ability to understand the impacts that tariffs might have and how we, as a provincial government, can work to support those jobs and … make sure that we keep those in Manitoba.”

The payroll tax deferral is one of the tariff counter-measures that will help businesses “to keep some of that cash flow for operations going,” Moses said.

Selkirk Mayor Larry Johannson said he’s confident the federal and provincial governments will do right by Selkirk and its steel industry when Trump’s tariff war arrives there Wednesday.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for our provincial government. I’ve got a lot of respect for the premier and his ministers, as I do for the other premiers in Canada,” Johannson said Friday. “I have faith that the federal government and the provincial governments are doing their best to try to bring this to a swift end.”

Johannson was in office in 2018 when Trump — in his initial term as president — imposed tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel.

“There were no layoffs at the mill,” he said. “The business continued and, within a year, the tariffs were off. I’m hoping they’re going to be off a lot sooner.”

Perchotte said much has changed since 2018.

“It’s a different financial landscape with high interest rates, and people are already feeling pressed with affordability issues,” the member for Selkirk said. “Some of them are saying they bought homes, they purchased new cars. They know that if they face a layoff from the steel mill that they cannot sustain the payments that they have. They’ll have to look for work elsewhere.”

» Winnipeg Free Press