Sask. MP Kram raises concerns over tariffs impacting Regina steel jobs

With U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum taking effect this week, Conservative MP for Regina-Wascana Michael Kram is concerned about job losses in Regina.

Kram said hundreds of workers and many more in spin-off industries depend on the Queen City’s Evraz North America steel plant.

Read more:

• Saskatchewan doubles road-use charge for electric vehicles
• ‘Ticking time bomb’: Regina General Hospital using ‘mass casualty’ tactics
• Highway 11 fatal crash near Dundurn in October leads to six-year sentence

“For many families in Regina, this fight just got personal,” said Kram.

“I think it’s important to understand that these tariffs are not just something that people see in the news. They have very real and very negative effects on people who live and work here in Regina, especially the steelworkers at Evraz North America just north of town.”

Because much of Evraz’s production goes to the U.S., Kram said the tariffs create a lot of worries around the future of local jobs.

Regina-Wascana MP Michael Kram in 2021. (980 CJME files)

“If there is a 25-per-cent tariff, or a 50-per-cent tariff. or whatever it happens to be on any given day, it does create a tremendous amount of uncertainty at Evraz and, yes, I am concerned about job losses there,” he said.

If Evraz has to lay off employees as a result of the trade war, Kram said it would cause a lot of suffering in the community.

“It would be very bad. There are hundreds of people who depend on Evraz for their livelihood on a daily basis, and there are many more spin-off industries in Regina. When you have a major employer like Evraz, having to resort to layoffs would be devastating for the community,” he said.

Kram said he believes the trade war between Canada and the U.S. will get worse before it gets better.

“This may not be a temporary situation,” he said. “This may be the new normal … so all the more reason for us to work now to mitigate some of these harmful effects.”

Kram said there are several things a Conservative government would do to address the damage done by the tariffs, including financially supporting the workers and industries that are most affected.

“We do need to have retaliatory tariffs dollar-for-dollar, but the revenues for the Government of Canada created by these tariffs should not just go into some slush fund in Ottawa,” he said.

“They should be going towards lowering taxes for Canadians, and they should be earmarked for those sectors that are most adversely affected by the tariffs.”

Kram stressed that more also needs to be done to get pipelines built in Canada, which would increase the demand for steel while bringing in revenue for the energy sector.

“We could just get one major pipeline project that would more than compensate for the job losses or the loss of work because of the new tariffs,” he said.

“Getting pipelines built has to be a new priority for the Conservative government.”

However, Kram noted, the biggest step that could be taken to mitigate the harm caused by the steel and aluminum tariffs would be to cancel the federal carbon tax, which Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced will happen on April 1.

Read more:

• Saskatchewan doubles road-use charge for electric vehicles
• ‘Ticking time bomb’: Regina General Hospital using ‘mass casualty’ tactics
• Highway 11 fatal crash near Dundurn in October leads to six-year sentence