Thank you for inviting me to present my brief on behalf of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction on this very important topic.

Established in 1930, CISC is Canada's voice for the steel construction industry, promoting the use and benefits of steel in construction and supporting the needs of the membership and industry through technical expertise, knowledge transfer, research and development, industry codes and standards, and certification and advocacy.

We represent the steel manufacturers, fabricators, suppliers, constructors, engineers and architects who are building with steel in Canada. Steel is a strong, adaptable material that is sustainable, cost-effective and resilient, among many other benefits, making it a reliable choice for building Canada's vital infrastructure.

I want to begin by commending the federal government for the measures, which were supported by all parties, announced on August 26. The CISC is supportive of the 25% surtax on imports of steel and aluminum products from China under section 53 of the Customs Tariff, which we, in conjunction with the Canadian Steel Producers Association, advocated for the government to introduce.

Our fabricators are generally supportive of creating a strong domestic steel industry. They recognize China as a bad actor in the fabricated steel industry and, most importantly, recognize that it is in our best interests to protect access to and harmonize with our closest trading partner, the United States. However, it must be acknowledged that Canada does not domestically produce all the raw steel that our members need to build in this country. While CISC encourages domestic production, we recognize that at present our members must have access to outside markets to build the high-rises, hospitals, schools and bridges our country needs.

Since much of the steel we buy is from the United States and our fabricators do a significant amount of cross-border work, the Department of Finance and other relevant departments must work closely with their U.S. counterparts to support harmonization in our ongoing response to China's unfair trade practices.

We also appreciate the government's intentions with the recently announced remedies to support stakeholders facing supply chain shock due to the recently announced tariffs. While these remedies are well intentioned, we caution the government to be selective in applying remedies to ensure that the objectives of the tariffs are fulfilled and that Canadian domestic materials continue to be prioritized. The remedy application process should require that the supplier operates under the same rules as our domestic suppliers do for any remedies to be granted. While we commend measures introduced thus far on raw Chinese steel, there is more work to be done to support the domestic steel industry and Canada's larger economy against unfair trade practices.

The current tariff regime is ambiguous as to the steel that has been melted down and poured in another country or as it pertains to downstream steel products, which is steel that has been fabricated or, for example, incorporated into our household appliances. Omitting downstream products from the list enables loopholes for bad actors to continue to exploit. Fabrication is the real value-add in the steel industry, where our members take raw steel and engineer and craft it for our building purposes, all with safety, quality, sustainability and cost-effectiveness of national infrastructure projects top of mind. This is very engineering-intensive and high-tech, and it requires skilled labour.

Failing to protect Canada from imported fabricated steel products will result in losing this vital skill from our domestic manufacturing knowledge base. We need to protect our Canadian manufacturing industry's ability to build well with steel, to support our infrastructure needs and to quickly and safely respond to environmental crises, such as the Fraser Valley flooding in 2021, in which steel bridges were rapidly deployed to restore transportation corridors after several bridges were washed out. Our members were among the very first responders in that natural disaster, and as we face many more, we need to continue to have this important domestic capacity.

The push to extend the tariffs to downstream products has gained support in the United States as well, with the bipartisan congressional steel caucus last month calling on the Department of Commerce to expand section 232 protections for certain downstream products, including fabricated structural steel. In the interest of continuing to achieve harmonization with the United States and protect this cross-border industry, we should be expanding section 53 tariffs on the same.

To further support the steel industry and the highly skilled engineers and tradespeople who fabricate and innovate our country's steel infrastructure, the CISC recommends that the government establish fabricated-in-Canada requirements in the construction of all taxpayer-funded and taxpayer-supported manufacturing projects, including those that support the transition to a low-carbon economy, such as EV and battery plants.

Our communities receive a four-time return on investment when we utilize Canadian fabricators to build our infrastructure. The overall economic success of the steel industry, like other sectors of construction, is shaped by the economic boost in opportunities that arise from big projects, particularly government-funded projects. Canadian taxpayer-funded projects should not be awarded to companies purchasing foreign fabricated steel in countries that lack reciprocal procurement policies.

Once again, thank you to the committee for inviting me to appear on behalf of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction.

I look forward to your questions.