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Canada’s metal trade has accused greater than 20 international locations of dumping metal rebar at artificially low costs, however some provinces argue that there is a compelling case to purchase international
Printed Could 01, 2025 • Final up to date 2 hours in the past • 11 minute learn
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Metal trade insiders usually liken their efforts to maintain foreign-produced, unfairly priced metal out of Canada to a high-stakes recreation of Whack-a-Mole that’s maybe greatest exemplified by the decade-long struggle to stem the tide of rebar — the metal rods which are buried in cement in bridges, condos and different development initiatives — from flowing into Canada.
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Since 2014, the Canadian metal trade has accused greater than 20 international locations, starting with China, South Korea and Turkey, and lengthening to Spain, the United Arab Emirates and lots of different international locations, of dumping their rebar into Canada at artificially low costs.
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In practically each case, the Canadian Worldwide Commerce Tribunal (CITT) has vindicated home metal producers and levied duties on the accused international locations’ rebar. Nonetheless, rebar continues to pour into Canada, which impacts all the pieces from the worth of housing to jobs and even nationwide safety.
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A development employee assembles metal rebar for bridge columns on the Deerfoot Path widening mission at Glenmore Path in Calgary. Rebar continues to pour into Canada from different international locations, which impacts all the pieces from the worth of housing to jobs and even nationwide safety. Photograph by Gavin Younger /Postmedia
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The trade’s commerce group traces the basis of the issue to a world overcapacity in metal manufacturing, which it stated is most pronounced in China, however there’s one other drawback a lot nearer to residence and it isn’t the commerce struggle initiated by United States President Donald Trump: because the metal trade pushes a “Purchase Canadian” marketing campaign, doing so usually means paying extra for a similar merchandise, which may be an financial deterrent all by itself.
“The problem is that it’s truly cheaper to supply rebar from international markets, whether or not that’s Asia or the U.S., than it’s from metal mills in Central Canada simply due to the price of delivery it,” Chris Gardner, chief govt of the Impartial Contractors and Enterprise Affiliation of British Columbia, stated. “That’s a giant issue.”
Though there’s a mill in Edmonton that produces rebar, nearly all of the domestically produced rebar originates in metal vegetation in Ontario and Quebec.
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Gardner stated the price of delivery heavy metal rods throughout the nation by rail or truck may be vital, as a lot as $200 per metric tonne, in comparison with $39 to $69 per tonne to convey rebar in from Asia or the Center East by maritime delivery.
Furthermore, contractors within the West say they generally can’t get hold of domestically produced rebar.
The problem is that it’s truly cheaper to supply rebar from international markets
Chris Gardner, Impartial Contractors and Enterprise Affiliation of British Columbia
In consequence, homebuilders in Western Canada have turned to rebar imported from Asia, Washington or elsewhere, which he stated helps preserve the price of development down — a significant concern as Canada continues to confront a housing disaster.
Since 2014, there have been double-digit will increase within the benchmark residence worth in each province, with prices doubling or practically doubling in lots of provinces. For instance, there was an 85.9 per cent rise within the benchmark worth of a house in British Columbia to $961,600 in 2024 from $517,000 in 2014, in keeping with Canadian Actual Property Affiliation information.
Gardner stated it’s unlikely anybody will construct a rebar plant in B.C., partially as a result of there’s no apparent neighborhood that wishes an industrial facility of their yard. Constructing extra rail traces or roads to make it cheaper to ship throughout the nation is simply as unlikely, he stated.
“Speaking about provide chains is like speaking about calculus,” he stated. “Individuals don’t perceive it, they roll their eyes, nevertheless it does have actual prices. The truth that we will’t ship product successfully and cost-efficiently throughout our nation does have a value for Canadians.”
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And so the battle traces have been drawn.
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Building crews work on a brand new residence constructing in Edmonton. Western Canadian builders choose to make use of imported metal rebar from locations together with China as a result of it’s cheaper than the home different. Photograph by David Bloom /Postmedia
Metal producers and staff can problem the move of these merchandise into Canada in the event that they suppose they’re priced unfairly, however would-be consumers say the nation is just too massive for mills in Ontario or Quebec to serve Western Canada.
Beneath World Commerce Group guidelines, it’s thought-about “dumping” when a international producer expenses lower than what it expenses in its residence market or lower than its price of manufacturing. The Canadian Border Providers Company (CBSA) investigates whether or not international producers are dumping in Canada, and the CITT determines if the dumped metal is harming producers in Canada. If that’s the case, the CBSA assesses a levy.
Gardner’s group has filed briefs advocating for extra international imports, arguing that the home trade doesn’t have the capability to satisfy rebar demand in Western provinces. However Craig Logie, a lawyer who has represented unionized steelworkers in circumstances involving rebar dumping, stated the other.
“The fellows in B.C. simply desire a lower cost,” he stated. “We’ve bought spare capability.”
Rebar as a commodity
Rebar’s significance to the trade is grounded in metal mill economics. As a rule of thumb, metal mills have excessive mounted prices, which implies that as soon as metal manufacturing falls beneath an optimum quantity, prices begin to rise.
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That’s the place rebar is available in. Though it’s thought-about a low-margin product, trade insiders say producing it helps preserve a mill’s throughput greater, thereby spreading prices over a bigger quantity of products and growing efficiencies.
Adam Parr, a spokesperson for Brazil-headquartered Gerdau SA, which manufactures rebar at services in Whitby, Ont., Cambridge, Ont., and Selkirk, Man., stated producing rebar means much less downtime on the mill.
“It tends to be a flex product,” he stated. “Ideally, you use 24/7, and rebar is a reasonably commoditized product. It’s a great way to maintain your mill working effectively.”
There are no less than 4 different firms producing rebar in Canada: ArcelorMittal Lengthy Merchandise Canada GP is the biggest rebar producer with three services in Quebec; AltaSteel Inc. manufactures rebar at a facility in Edmonton; and there are two different services in Ontario. Collectively, the businesses make use of hundreds of individuals.
Metal trade attorneys say having a metal trade is essential for the well being of the nation. It’s a approach to preserve residents employed and it feeds different superior manufacturing industries, comparable to the car, aviation and defence sectors, all of that are essential financial exports.
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China’s overcapacity
Catherine Cobden, president of the Canadian Metal Producers Affiliation, is now asking to broaden metal tariffs on many different international locations.
Many trade executives lay the blame for metal dumping on China, saying it overbuilt its manufacturing capability years in the past and has been looking for new markets to export metal as its personal economic system has slowed down.
The nation’s overcapacity has ripple results as a result of because it exports to new markets, the metal producers in these international locations should then seek for new markets for their very own merchandise.
There’s some analysis to assist these claims.
Final month, the Group for Financial Co-operation and Improvement (OECD) introduced collectively delegates from 41 main steel-producing international locations to evaluate how extra capability is disrupting worldwide markets and resulting in commerce circumstances, such because the anti-dumping actions on the CITT.
The OECD pinned numerous the blame on China, which it stated subsidizes its metal trade after which exports extra metal than is produced in North America.
“The committee reviewed its newest subsidy monitoring work, concluding that vital Chinese language subsidization in 2024, together with grants, tax incentives, differentiated electrical energy pricing and below-market borrowing to metal firms in China and different international locations, will worsen metal extra capability issues and set off additional commerce disruptions for Metal Committee members going ahead,” the OECD stated.
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Extra metal capability is anticipated to extend to 721 million tonnes globally by 2027, up from an estimated 602 million tonnes in 2024, “placing monumental pressures on the viability of even extremely aggressive steelmakers,” the OECD stated.
China accounted for 47 per cent of metal manufacturing in 2023, in keeping with the OECD, whereas India, the following largest steel-producing economic system, accounted for six per cent.
The worldwide metal trade is dealing with a large extra capability drawback
Adam Parr, metal producer Gerdau SA
Canada, which has accounted for round 1.5 per cent of worldwide metal exports lately, most of which go to the U.S. and Mexico, has already sought to dam China from flooding its market.
“The worldwide metal trade is dealing with a large extra capability drawback,” Parr stated of Gerdau. “It’s vital that Canada’s commerce legal guidelines are enforced to guard the home metal trade and its workforce. Canada can’t be the dumping floor for the world’s overcapacity.”
In October, the federal authorities utilized 25 per cent tariffs to a spread of Chinese language metal merchandise as a part of a widening commerce struggle through which China retaliated final month with tariffs on Canadian canola oil, pork and different merchandise. In March, Canada utilized 25 per cent tariffs on a listing of U.S. metal merchandise in retaliation for its tariffs on Canadian metal.
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Since then, the federal authorities has closed a 30-day session and is at the moment contemplating what commerce measures it may well take to guard in opposition to metal merchandise being diverted into third international locations after which into the Canadian market because of the 25 per cent tariffs that the U.S. positioned on all metal merchandise from all international locations.
However the Canadian Metal Producers Affiliation (CAPA) is now asking to broaden metal tariffs on many different international locations.
B.C. Financial Improvement Minister Diana Gibson, pictured in November at a swearing-in ceremony in Victoria, final week requested for particular aid for her province from a few of the federal commerce treatments affecting metal. Photograph by Chad Hipolito /The Canadian Press
“The speedy step we’re in search of is that we broaden the tariff regime in Canada, rapidly and urgently, to cowl a wider vary of merchandise and international locations,” Catherine Cobden, CAPA’s chief govt, stated in early March.
She declined to remark additional for this text.
That place just isn’t more likely to go uncontested. A letter submitted to the federal authorities by B.C. Financial Improvement Minister Diana Gibson final week requested for particular aid for her province from a few of the federal commerce treatments affecting metal.
She requested that because the federal authorities develops a commerce response to metal diversion from the U.S. to Canada, it present “a rebate or full exemption” for metal imports utilized in public initiatives in B.C. and a “momentary full exemption” for metal imports for different B.C. customers, so long as metal imports don’t exceed historic ranges. She additionally requested for federal funds to pay for extra transportation prices of metal throughout the nation.
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Canada can’t be the dumping floor for the world’s overcapacity
Adam Parr, metal producer Gerdau SA
In 2024, B.C. imported $4-billion price of metal, with China offering 31 per cent, the U.S. 21 per cent and South Korea, Taiwan and Japan offering an extra 28 per cent mixed, she stated within the letter.
Though Gibson stated B.C. helps the federal response to tariffs and the significance of nationwide unity, she additionally issued a warning.
“Any commerce treatments being thought-about with respect to attainable international metal diversion should not worsen the already fragile development and manufacturing industries, exacerbate housing affordability, hurt the financial pursuits of producers and staff situated right here, or considerably improve the prices of our public initiatives,” she stated.
Gibson was not accessible for remark previous to publication.
Penalties of the metal commerce struggle
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Metal merchandise are seen stacked in a warehouse at North York Iron, a metal provider in Toronto. With the U.S. imposing tariffs on world metal imports, some imagine that dumping in Canada is more likely to develop worse as international locations search for different profitable markets. Photograph by COLE BURSTON /AFP by way of Getty Photos
The worldwide metal market is inherently geopolitical. In February, Edward Sim, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., wrote to the CITT to request a “public curiosity inquiry” into the practically 16 per cent anti-dumping obligation that it utilized to Bulgarian rebar earlier this yr.
He stated his consumer is a Ukrainian metal conglomerate that despatched metal billets to a mill in Bulgaria to be made into rebar and that it’s dropping cash in its residence market as a result of the plant there’s 80 kilometres from the frontlines of the struggle with Russia. In consequence, its staff have been drafted and killed, it has confronted drone and missile assaults, and it has skilled vitality disruptions.
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The struggle has additionally minimize off sure delivery routes, so there are restricted markets to ship the products to, which necessitates promoting at a lower cost.
To assist Ukraine, Canada has lifted sure duties, so its anti-dumping obligation contradicts this coverage, Sim stated.
“We requested for the general public curiosity listening to so the CITT can evaluate whether or not it truly is within the Canadian curiosity to impose these dumping duties,” he stated.
Lately, the metal trade in Canada has launched into a $1.77-billion mission to put in electrical arc furnaces at two services in Ontario that may drastically scale back carbon emissions by switching out coal energy for electrical energy, thereby making Canadian metal among the many cleanest on the planet.
There was and nonetheless is an effective market in Canada
Lawrence Herman, a commerce lawyer in Toronto
Lawrence Herman, a commerce lawyer in Toronto who spent years representing metal firms, stated dumped international rebar weakens the home sector.
“There was and nonetheless is an effective market in Canada,” he stated. “Take a look at Toronto. Each crane on the skyline includes big volumes of rebar on the base of that crane.”
After a decade of preventing over rebar, the one international locations nonetheless searching for to ship rebar to Canada are doing so at truthful market worth, Tim McMenamin, president of Jebsen & Jessen Hamburg GmbH, the biggest rebar importer in Canada, stated.
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He stated the CITT just lately rejected Canadian metal producers’ anti-dumping case in opposition to Thailand.
“They need a little bit extra of a captive market,” he stated about home producers. “However our backs are in opposition to the wall with inflation, with housing prices, with prices of residing; the extra protections we’ve got on metal, the upper it prices to construct bridges, roads, properties, so what are we defending?”
Logie, the lawyer representing steelworker unions, stated there are numerous jobs at stake.
Like others within the home trade, he stated the present course of requires utilizing the CITT and the CBSA to maintain out dumped merchandise, which is each time-consuming and costly. A single case concentrating on a number of international locations can take anyplace from a number of months to greater than a yr from the start of an investigation till anti-dumping duties are imposed, and it may well price thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
“It’s too cumbersome — it’s Whack-a Mole — the place we take a rustic or two at a time,” Logie stated. “It’s basically taken us 10, 15 years to guard this trade, and vegetation exit of enterprise in that point.”
With the U.S. imposing tariffs on world metal imports, he and others imagine that dumping in Canada is more likely to develop worse as international locations search for different profitable markets to promote their metal.
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Previously, he stated the federal authorities hasn’t all the time been on the aspect of steelworkers; for instance, in 2018, it granted an obligation remission, in order that fabricated industrial metal elements from China may very well be imported to B.C. at a decrease price to be used in a significant vitality mission, regardless of protests from home metal producers and staff.
However with the newest protectionist commerce insurance policies within the U.S., there’s an rising bipartisan consensus that Canada should carve a brand new path for itself that reduces its dependence on the U.S.
Metal has a giant function to play in any future economic system, Logie stated.
“These mills aren’t working anyplace close to full capability,” he stated, “they usually may very well be — they might ramp up that capability and they’ll — in the event that they preserve the dumped stuff out of the market, however that dumped stuff has been taking over an enormous share.”
• E mail: gfriedman@postmedia.com
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