Canada Steamship Lines - Power Corporation

Power Corporation

In 1951, Sir James Dunn, the owner of Algoma Steel, gained effective control over the company. Following his passing in 1956, Dunn's estate would eventually sell off the CSL shares and in 1963 Paul Desmarais would acquire a major position until taking effective control a few years later.

CSL saw operations increase exponentially in the late 1950s with the opening of the expanded Saint Lawrence Seaway and the timely discovery and exploitation of some of the world's largest iron ore deposits on the Labrador Peninsula in Labrador City, Schefferville, and Mont Wright. Ore was moved to Sept-Îles and Port-Cartier by the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway and Cartier Railway respectively, where it was then loaded into bulk carriers for transfer to Canadian and U.S. steel mills on the Great Lakes. CSL exploited this traffic by continually refining its self-unloading bulk carrier designs, coupled with improvements in stevedoring at various ports to arrive at a minimal number of human operators required.

In 1963, a non-controlling share of CSL was purchased by Montreal-headquartered Power Corporation, a Quebec industrial conglomerate with interests in electricity generation, pulp and paper, and oil and gas. CSL continued operating and expanding its Great Lakes shipping line and the Collingwood and Lauzon shipyards through the 1960s, and witnessed several labour disputes.