Experts and high ranking government officials met in Hamilton Friday as part of an economic summit on the steel industry.

Federal economic development minister Navdeep Bains was a guest speaker at the event and says Canada is holding on in the face of the 25% tariffs put on Canadian steel by the Trump government. He says the government knows how important the steel industry is in this country.

“The steel sector is very important to the Canadian economy, it contributes $4.2 billion to our economy annually. There are 23 000 jobs connected directly to the steel industry.”

Right now in Hamilton there are more than 10,000 people working at Stelco, Dofasco and National Steelcar and more than 40,000 people working in spin off jobs. If the U.S. tariffs continue, those numbers will go down.

The President of United Steelworkers local 1005 says he’s glad everyone came together at the summit to talk about the steel industry and wants to see more solid plans going forward.

“The people in Canada want to see a buy Canadian plan, they want to see a plan where what’s going to happen if a trade agreement doesn’t work out with the states.”

In the meantime, the minister says NAFTA negotiations will carry on and the government will continue to fight to see the tariffs eliminated.