Key evidence was struck from the record in federal court, say unions. Earlier this week, a federal court justice dismissed an attempt by two British Columbia unions to have temporary foreign worker permits for 201 miners revoked.
The Construction and Specialized Workers Union and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115 launched their case after it came to light the company, HD Mining, had advertised mining positions listing Mandarin as a job requirement.
The unions contended the language requirement was meant to exclude Canadians so the company could bring workers from China and legally pay them 15 per cent less than market wages at its Murray River project near Tumbler Ridge, B.C.
After a months-long court battle Judge Russel Zinn ruled Tuesday HD Mining filed its applications properly according to the rules that were in place at the time.
But the unions said they lost because Zinn struck from the record key evidence that would have helped their case and, in their view, showed the company misrepresented its mining plans in the form of a notice of work application.
Testimony ruled ‘hearsay’
The application showed the company had planned to use room-and-pillar mining methods and not the long wall methods it said it would use, citing Canadians were unfamiliar with the technology hence the Chinese workers were needed.
Union spokesman Lee Loftus said that evidence was initially not allowed when first submitted to a different judge months ago because it wasn’t submitted with the initial court file, but only because the unions had to fight in court to have it released.
“They did that because of timelines of having that information submitted,” said Loftus. “Because the process didn’t allow us access to that information up front… once we secured that information and tried to utilize it, it was not accepted.”
Judge Zinn again rejected the evidence by striking an affidavit from Curtis Harold, described in court documents as a “business agent for the unions,” who picked up what he was told were HD Mining’s up-to-date records from the B.C. Ministry of Natural Resource Operations.
The reasons for judgment said Harold had at first been given the “wrong” documents by deputy chief of mines inspector Diane Howe, when he returned to get the correct ones an unknown ministry employee handed him supposedly updated records.
Zinn ruled Harold’s testimony about how he got the documents was inadmissible and “hearsay” in part because he only submitted four documents of the bundle he received and because he could not give a name of the person who gave him the files.
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