Workers finish aluminum poles at the ALU MC3 factory, a Quebec producer of metal poles and supports for lighting and signage, in March, 2025.ROGER LEMOYNE/The Globe and Mail
There are roughly 1,700 companies shaping aluminum into components or finished products in Quebec, cranking out everything you can think of with the malleable metal – from ambulance doors to window frames.
Half of them are based in the greater Montreal area. And all of them have one major problem at the moment: Donald Trump.
Industry groups have been warning for weeks of the pain to come from the U.S. President’s 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, which came into effect March 12. But on the factory floors of Quebec’s aluminum-product makers, and in the hallways and offices of manufacturers where net profit margins are typically in the single digits and payrolls rarely tally more than 200 employees, those warnings have become reality.
The sector is in early-stage distress.
“These are businesses that were operating well, that were in expansion mode,” said François Racine, president of industry lobby group AluQuébec. Now, they find themselves penalized against American rivals who make mostly the same things they do. “This is going to hurt us badly,” he said.
Some companies have been forced to lay off staff or cut their hours after losing contracts in recent weeks with U.S. customers. Others are scrambling to find workarounds to minimize the damage. Everywhere, it seems, lives have been upended by a president who has said the United States needs “nothing” that Canada makes.
The stakes now are exponentially higher than the last time the United States slapped tariffs on Canadian aluminum, in 2018. Not only do the import levies hit primary aluminum produced by miners such as Alcoa and Rio Tinto, they also apply to products made from aluminum. Worse, they’re compounded by Canada’s retaliatory tariffs and potentially by separate 25-per-cent tariffs that Mr. Trump ordered and later mostly suspended – tariffs he said were tied to Canada’s failure to stop fentanyl smuggling and illegal immigration to the United States.
Michel-André Lamarche, the chief executive officer of Bousquet Technologies in Sainte-Julie, Que., has led the company’s rapid ascent in recent years, as it scaled up operations to three sites and boosted annual revenue to about $50-million. He also made a bet: That the United States, which now represents about 20 per cent of sales, would drive all of the company’s next-stage growth.
Michel-André Lamarche, president and CEO of Bousquet Technologies, at the company's factory in Ste-Julie, Que.ROGER LEMOYNE/The Globe and Mail
The U.S. had been the focus of intense sales efforts by the CEO’s team over the past 12 months, but now he’s hit a wall there. His customers, who are specialized distributors selling to contractors, have been spooked by the tariffs and are scouting for other suppliers because they want to maintain their own profit levels. Even with a weak Canadian dollar, the levies are pricing him out of the market.
Bousquet builds ventilation and energy recovery systems. The company’s box-shaped units, made with aluminum and steel, cost upward of $100,000 each and come in sizes as big as 12 feet by 12 feet. You’ll see them on building roofs across cityscapes, from schools to high-rises.
The boxes were an easy sell in New York State and Massachusetts because of the high cost of power in those states, Mr. Lamarche said. Bousquet’s heat exchange systems piled up big energy savings for customers, he said, and the orders followed.
Since Mr. Trump’s election in November, however, that business has lost steam – and the result is visible on the shop floor. One unit out of two is finished, wrapped and ready to ship, while new contracts aren’t coming in as quickly as before. Mr. Lamarche now has holes in his production schedule and has had to change up his staffing as a result.
Bousquet’s work force had already been trimmed from 180 to about 165, as people who left in recent months were not replaced. On Friday, the company moved its factory personnel to four days a week, with workers receiving employment insurance benefits for a portion of lost wages under the federal government’s work-sharing program, Mr. Lamarche said.
The CEO is clearheaded about his strategy going forward. The company, controlled by private-equity firm W Investments, will reorganize its supply chain to try to avoid using materials being routed through the United States. And it will lower the prices of its U.S.-destined units, swallowing a big chunk of the tariff in a bid to maintain its U.S. market share.
Workers at the Bousquet factory build ventilation and energy recovery units, made with aluminum and steel, each of which costs upwards of $100,000.ROGER LEMOYNE/The Globe and Mail
“Our objective is to stay in our clients’ faces, sell at a lower margin and be ready for the aftermath,” Mr. Lamarche said, adding that his Canadian business should help offset the U.S. volatility. “Short term, it’s going to be hell.”
Just down the highway from Bousquet is the headquarters of Cyrell AMP, a maker of architectural panels for building exteriors whose projects include Toronto’s Pinnacle One Yonge. The company is a specialist in “wild” custom aluminum work, in the words of Amélie Poirier-Borduas, the director of marketing and strategic development. It uses 3-D modelling techniques to execute things some other companies wouldn’t touch, she added. “We’re not afraid of anything.”
Cyrell launched in 1999 and had been on a tear of late, with annual revenue growth of 40 per cent boosted by business in both Canada and the United States, Ms. Poirier-Borduas said. The manufacturer moved to a site in Beloeil three years ago and doubled its operational footprint. It does about $25-million in annual revenue and employs 80 people.
Its U.S. business has cooled in recent weeks. “There were contracts we could have clinched but that we didn’t get in the end because there’s too much instability out there,” Ms. Poirier-Borduas said. “Our clients were scared of having to pay 25 per cent more so they turned elsewhere.” She estimates that trade war volatility has cost the company between $1.5-million and $2-million so far in lost sales.
Management has taken action in a bid to preserve cash, putting a planned plant expansion on ice, cutting staffing by 10 per cent and reducing weekly factory hours from 40 to 35 – here, too, there is no longer a Friday shift. On The Globe and Mail’s recent visit, the parking lot was virtually empty.
“I think people are happy to keep their jobs, and so they’ve accepted these cuts,” Ms. Poirier-Borduas said, but it hasn’t been easy. “We’ve got folks who’ve come to us and said they’ll have to take delivery work at DoorDash to make ends meet.”
So what are Cyrell’s options to get back on track and fill in what’s been lost in the United States? Tapping Europe is a possibility, but that market already has an established stable of local panel makers. As for going further afield in Canada, that’s also an alternative never before considered. “It’s just been easier for us to do business in Boston than Halifax,” Ms. Poirier-Borduas said.
The company has also begun to consider what else it can do with its factory equipment, eyeing a push into other lines of business.
Workers finish highway overhead structures (top) and aluminum poles at the ALU MC3 factory, in Sainte-Julie, Que.ROGER LEMOYNE/The Globe and Mail
ALU MC3 is another manufacturer that had finally found its footing coming out of the pandemic.
The Sainte-Julie maker of aluminum traffic light poles and highway signalization supports was booking a steady stream of orders from government transport departments and carving out new business with developers of residential neighbourhoods in U.S. states, notably Florida and Texas. About a quarter of current sales are with American customers – an order book the company won by positioning itself as cheaper and faster to deliver than U.S. rivals.
The business ($12-million in annual revenue, 45 employees) tends to run against economic cycles. But Mr. Trump has thrown things off kilter, said Bruno Montgrain, a finance whiz who owns the company with his father and serves as vice-president.
Quebec aluminum-good makers are now getting squeezed from all sides, Mr. Montgrain said. That’s chiefly because the metal can cross the border several times before it’s made into a finished product. He said he and other processors are paying more for primary aluminum, even aluminum made in Quebec, because prices are generally tied to the London Metal Exchange and a tariff is added via what’s known as the Midwest premium.
General director and vice-president Bruno Montgrain at the ALU MC3 factory.ROGER LEMOYNE/The Globe and Mail
On top of that, they’re facing a Canadian countertariff if they bring in the aluminum extrusions they need from the United States. And finally, they’re hit with the 25-per-cent import levy on any finished wares they sell in the U.S.
Mr. Montgrain is looking for ways to maintain ALU MC3’s momentum. He says he’s not laying off staff because he needs brains and brawn to keep growing. His focus at the moment is on finding tariff exemptions and offsets and getting a clear picture of what he’ll be dealing with. He thinks he’s found one loophole he can use.
As he explains it, if you source your aluminum extrusions from a supplier that uses aluminum melted and cast in the United States, then the U.S. import tariff only applies to the portion of the value you added by turning it into a finished product. It’s not a miracle solution but it might dull the pain.
He’ll find out if it works at some point. Right now, his U.S. sales effort is largely on hold.
“We’re not going to buy raw material for a contract that we don’t even know we can make at a reasonable price,” he said of the rapidly changing situation. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”