By the time I joined the company as a clerk they had been in Toronto for about 8 years.
There was one somewhat larger competitor ( Drummond McCall) with much the same product line and services, plus a whole bunch of competitors who decided to specialize on only a somewhat smaller product line but offering improved special services at extremely competitive price levels.
I'm elaborating on this because I'm trying to show that I had a good grasp of what the Canadian steel mills were able to produce, the prices from the three mills were the same.
Dofasco, Hamilton was a flat rolled products mill only, producing primary steel and offering it for sale as sheet,plate, hot rolled or pickled coil,cold rolled coil as well as galvanized and wipecoat zinc coated sheet and coil. Steel was produced from Bessemer type tiltable vessels, a European invention.
Stelco, or Steel Company of Canada had a somewhat similar product line as Dofasco but they also produced a line of Hot Rolled bars up to angle iron 3", rounds, flats, angles. Stelco owned an allied group of companies converting bars into cold finished, drawn product as well as secondary firms making nails and fasteners. Instead of the Bessemer vessels Stelco's primary production was in the form of an open hearth large rocking furnace spiked with oxygen lances producing quality steel.
Jointly the two mills owned a plant coating cold rolled coil into painted coil products ,near Hamilton off Highway Q.E. ,called Baycoat.
That leaves Algoma...of Sault Ste.Mary. Their product line was sheet Hot and Cold rolled as well as structural Beams, channels, I and H beams as well as piling. Algoma too operated with Bessemer bells using concentrated iron ore pellets to make steel.
There were other steel producing smaller mills or converters but the bulk of the steel tonnage produced in Canada originated from Stelco,Dofasco or Algoma.
There were occasional shortages or strikes by Stelco or Algoma, ( no union at Dofasco) During shortages quantities to established customers were allocated based on past history and on the whole the industry appeared to flourish only some of the distributors including Leslie struggled a bit, because their product line was too wide, turnover and margins too small to survive.
A number of companies actually imported large tonnage of bar and structural steel from Europe, Germany, Belgium,Luxembourg and even Austria. It always puzzled me how these mills from Europe were able to compete and in fact offer price advantages.
Some time after leaving Leslie Metals I worked as Purchasing Agent ( almost 2 years) for a coil processing Company, Renown Steel. They marketed some of their own Stelco/Dofasco coil products but the bulk of their business was converting or slitting large cold rolled steel coils into smaller coils, most of this was customer owned material which Renown trucked from Hamilton, stored and processed to the tune of over 300 tons a day, 7 days a week processing significant tonnage of steel.
Working in the steel business as clerk or middle management never made me rich, years later I decided to do something else.
I had a pretty good idea as to product range and capacity of the Canadian, or mostly Ontario Steel mills. American mills shipped or sold relatively little to Ontario they were rarely competitive except for products not made here, such as diamond pattern steel plate. As far as I know, giants like Bethlehem Steel or USS,United States Steel did relatively little business here.
Sometime in 2006 Stelco (Directors, Managers whoever) hired a new CEO from the USA. Of course I have no idea what the plans were as to what to do with this company, perhaps split it up a little, modernize it, anything but shut it down. Within less than two years the company was sold off to United States Steel, to keep the business going the management accomplished to get I believe $250 Million Dollars loan or assistance from Ontario. But shortly thereafter shut the business down. For his talented management of this ordeal the guest manager CEO from the U.S. got a reward ( guess he had an ironclad contract) of over 40 Million Dollars. Ontario is trying to recover the loan the effort will probably do nothing but make some rich lawyers richer.
I find this almost to be a case of major fraud, has anybody been held accountable for this? What about the 5600 employees, their union,Hamilton, the federal Government. What if anything has been done about this, what do we do without a large capacity steelmaker in this country where the product is desperately needed? We are a country of about 38 Million.We have desperate needs to improve, renew and expand our aging infrastructure.We must look ahead a few years. There are pipelines and rail-links to be built. China, for what it matters produces 38 Million new people every year....that's the same as our population right now. What do we do without a vibrant efficient steel industry in this large country.
