Just before Christmas, about 1,000 Algoma Steel workers were told they were out of a job in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. Workers and their families sat around kitchen tables trying to figure out how to cover rent, heat, and groceries while the company talked about “difficult decisions” and “market pressures.” For those workers, this was not a financial story or a line on a balance sheet. It was a life‑upending shock, and the hits for people at the plant kept coming. Now we are seeing what was happening at the top during all this.
Algoma Steel CEO Michael Garcia walked away with a $6.82‑million pay package. That is about 130 percent more than he made two years earlier, even as the company lost almost $1 billion. His base salary alone was just over $1 million, which works out to more than $41,000 every two weeks. Many Canadians will not see that much in an entire year, let alone in a single pay period. This is not the kind of leadership people expect in this country. In my view, it looks like a straight‑up cash grab.
And here is the part that should make every Canadian sit up. Algoma did not get to this point on private money alone. Canadian taxpayers, through Ottawa and Queen’s Park, have poured in public financing to “safeguard jobs” and support Algoma’s shift to electric arc furnace steelmaking. In reality, Algoma has secured close to $1 billion in federal and provincial support in recent years, through loans and so‑called clean‑technology funding. That is public money meant to protect workers and communities, not to clear a smooth path for CEO jackpot payouts courtesy of hard-working Canadians.
In my opinion, I am not saying that there was a direct wire transfer from the federal treasury into Garcia’s personal bank account. That is not how corporate finance is set up, and everyone knows it. But money is money. When governments pump hundreds of millions in new loans into a struggling company, on top of earlier funding, they free up cash across the board. That includes cash to maintain fat executive salaries and golden packages at the top. That is exactly why the United Steelworkers have called this situation a disgrace and an embarrassment for our federal government.
Let us be honest: it is a tragedy that executives are protected while workers are sacrificed. Even worse is how governments act like their hands are tied. They talk about “respecting corporate decisions” and “market forces,” as if they had not just signed away massive public support. This is not an accident. It is a choice. Elected officials in both Ottawa and Ontario chose to hand over huge support with weak or hidden conditions, even though unions were demanding strong job guarantees and real accountability. They chose not to put hard legal limits on executive bonuses and payouts, even as the company was cutting a third of its workforce and posting brutal losses.
If I am wrong and there were strong conditions in those deals, they should say so and prove it. Show us the clauses. Show workers where they were protected. So far, the silence from those governments speaks volumes. As a Canadian taxpayer and as someone who has spent years fighting for government accountability, I have had enough of this game. If a company takes public money, executive bonuses should be banned during layoffs and losses, full stop. Not “discouraged.” Not “frowned upon.” Banned. There should be clear, tough rules that tie every dollar of support to decent jobs, fair wages, training, and community stability, not to payouts in corner offices through cushy exit deals for executive and management types.
And when companies break faith with their workers, that funding should not just quietly continue. It should be clawed back. If public money helped keep a company afloat, then the public interest and workers’ interests should come first. That means job guarantees. That means real penalties when promises are broken. That means no more blank cheques for corporate greed.
Workers built Algoma Steel. Workers built Sault Ste. Marie. They did the hard, dirty, skilled work that actually produces value. They are not disposable. Right now, the price of greed is being loaded onto their backs while a very small group at the top walks away richer. It is time to flip that script and make the people who profit from this greed pay the price instead.
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