The Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation
) was a Canadian coal mining
Incorporated in 1928 and operational in 1930, DOSCO was predated by the British Empire Steel Corporation
(BESCO) which was a merger of the Dominion Coal Company
, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company
and the Nova Scotia Steel Company
. DOSCO was one of the largest private employers in Canada during the 1930s-1950s. In 1957, DOSCO was purchased as a subsidiary of A.V. Roe Canada Ltd.
and was later assumed in 1962 by Hawker Siddeley Canada
. The company was dissolved in 1968 after the majority of its coal mining and steel mill industrial assets in Industrial Cape Breton
were expropriated and nationalized
by the federal and provincial governments.
Industrial Cape Breton consisted of two distinctive geographic regions for industrial activity: the "north side" of Sydney Harbour, and the "south side." The north side was dominated in the 1800s by the General Mining Association
(GMA), which had been formed in the 1820s after the Colony of Cape Breton Island
was amalgamated back into Nova Scotia
. Several independent collieries opened on the south side and by the 1870s, Canada's federal government had implemented its National Policy
of economic protectionist measures. It was during this decade that the leading operators on the "south side" foresaw the benefits of amalgamating and modernizing to replace lost American... Read More