Brockville, Ont. steel pipe plant faces challenges during Canada-U.S. trade war

A stainless steel pipe plant in Brockville says business is dropping significantly amid the U.S. trade war with Canada. CTV’s Dave Charbonneau reports.

A stainless-steel pipe manufacturer in Brockville, Ont. is feeling the pinch from U.S. tariffs.

Business at the Douglas Barwick plant in Brockville has dropped significantly year-over-year, the plant manager says, and the team is shrinking.

“Three years ago, we were close to 70 people. Now we’re down to about 40,” Tim Underhill, plant manager at Douglas Barwick, told CTV News Ottawa.

Underhill says the fear of tariffs is stopping projects, and cheap imports from Asia and India are tough to beat.

“What the threat of tariffs has done is created people to not go forward with their projects, their jobs,” Underhill said. “They don’t know how much, you know. And at the end of the day, here we are in Canada. The costs are higher. Labour rates are a lot more than when they bring stuff in from Asia or India.

And the numbers say it all—sales at Douglas Barwick have dropped by more than half.

“You know, we were probably in the $35 million to $40 million sales range last year. I think we’re close to $17 million. My pipe sales from the year previously went from $7 million down to 2.7 last year,” Underhill said.

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Katie McPherson has been with this company for 17 years. She says even local governments don’t know what to expect.

“Our business is slow. And I think a lot of it has to do with different municipalities and other government agencies putting projects on hold because of the uncertainty with the U.S. government,” said McPherson, Douglas Barwick Quality and Health and Safety and Environmental manager.

And it’s hard for local companies like Douglas Barwick to compete with cheap foreign products.

“Even with Canadian tariffs that’ll be applied for a product that is coming in from overseas, we’re still not even anywhere near competitive compared to what the product overseas comes in at,” McPherson said.

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In July, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced new measures to bolster Canada’s steel industry and prevent steel dumping in the Canadian market as the trade war with the U.S. continues. The government says Canada will “tighten the tariff rate quota levels for steel products” from non-free trade agreement companies from 100 per cent to 50 per cent of 2024 volumes.

Underhill says the only way to compete is for the government to step up and help Canadian businesses.

“You’ve got to create incentives for people to want to buy Canadian and use Canadian. And I think that’s where I’d like to see the government and politicians kind of put the rubber to the road there,” Underhill said.