Throughout the 20th century there had been a good deal of opposition in Quebec to the Seaway based on the fear that Montreal and Quebec City would by bypassed by river traffic and lose a great deal of their port and transshipment business. While that opposition likely represented a group of specific interests with a great deal of influence, by the early 1950s opinion in the province tended to be that a Seaway would benefit Quebec economically. This tendency was based on belief that Montreal, and the province in general, would benefit from shipping the recently-discovered iron ore in the Ungava region (which straddled the northern Quebec and Labrador border) to the steel factories of the Great Lakes region. A number of companies had joined with the American Hollinger-Hanna group to form the Iron Ore Company of Canada, and this conglomeration of U.S. interests signed a development deal with Quebec in 1951, helping pave the way for commencement in 1954 of the long-delayed St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project.
