Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation - Creation of DOSCO

Creation of DOSCO

In 1928 a new holding company called Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (also DOSCO) was formed as a holding company by McNaught and various BESCO investors. In May 1930 BESCO was dissolved and the new company took over its industrial properties. DOSCO implemented management processes that put a halt to the financial troubles through the 1930s. The company's fortunes were boosted by World War II with its control of manufacturing and their inputs and at one point DOSCO was the largest private employer in the nation.

Following the war, DOSCO's industrial prominence continued to slide as alternative fuels and sources for steel took force, combining with declines in government subsidization of both industries. In 1957, A.V. Roe Canada acquired a controlling interest in DOSCO in a bid to diversify its operations beyond the aircraft manufacturing and defence industries. In 1958, DOSCO subsidiary Cumberland Railway and Coal Company closed its mines in Springhill; the mines being closed following the Springhill Mining Disaster. The associated railway service limped on until permission to abandon was granted in 1961, and the last train ran in 1962. The Cumberland Railway continued to exist as a corporation, however, as the S&L was made its subsidiary in 1961, doing business as the Sydney & Louisburg Division of the Cumberland Railway. This was done primarily to make the provincially-chartered S&L eligible for federal railway subsidies.

In 1962 A.V. Roe Canada was dissolved and its assets merged into the newly-formed conglomerate Hawker Siddeley Canada, which sought to rid itself of money-losing operations.

By the early 1960s DOSCO was in a continuous slide and sought to halt its decline by shutting various poorly performing mines in the Pictou and Sydney coal fields; from 9 in 1960 to 5 in 1965. Despite shedding other money-losing subsidiaries it was still losing money and under pressure from Hawker Siddeley Canada to reduce red ink. In 1965, DOSCO announced that its remaining mines had only 15 years of production left and it would not undertake any further capital expenditures and would exit the industry within months.

The vast public outcry to DOSCO's announcement in Industrial Cape Breton saw the minority government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson come under incredible political pressure to resolve the crisis. Pearson announced the formation of the Donald Commission of inquiry into the industry, which would eventually lead to the formation of the federal Crown corporation Cape Breton Development Corporation (or DEVCO) and the provincial Crown corporation Sydney Steel Corporation (SYSCO) which expropriated DOSCO's mines and steel mill in 1968.