YELLOWKNIFE - It has been 15 years since her husband was killed in one of Canada's worst mass murders and three years since a judge ruled the blame should be spread widely, from the Canadian Auto Workers to the government of the Northwest Territories.
But on Monday, Doreen Hourie sat in yet another courtroom while lawyers argued over why nine miners died in an underground blast at Yellowknife's Giant Mine.
"The enablers don't want to stand up to the plate and take their part of the responsibility for what happened," she said outside court.
Hourie's husband Norm was killed in 1992 during a vicious labour dispute at the mine. A replacement worker, he was caught in a cataclysmic, deliberately set underground explosion.
Striking miner Roger Warren was convicted of murder and is now serving a life sentence.
In 1994, the territory's Workers' Compensation Board launched a lawsuit to try to recoup some money to help support the widows and families, which included 17 children. In 2004, a judge found responsibility for creating the conditions that led to the blast was shared by the CAW, the N.W.T., Pinkerton's security, now-defunct mine owner Royal Oak Mines and two union officials.
Justice Arthur Lutz awarded $10 million in damages, which has been sitting in a trust account ever since all six parties filed appeals.
One of 15 lawyers present in court Monday, Lyle Kanee, said that holding the national office of the CAW responsible for the actions of a member of a local affiliate union was like blaming a hockey coach for an out-of-control goon or parents for the crimes of their children. Lutz's decision was unprecedented, he said.
"Our legal system is premised on the suggestion that individuals are responsible for their own actions. Never before had a Canadian court found negligence for influencing the mindset of a criminal before a criminal act was committed."
Peter Gibson, representing the N.W.T., said territorial regulators who could have ordered the mine shut weren't at fault, either.
"Mine safety inspectors are not the ones to protect miners against violence," he said.
And John Hope, representing Pinkerton's - who provided mine site security during the sometimes violent strike - said nobody could have predicted Warren's extreme action.
But Phillip Warner, lawyer for the families, pointed out that territorial mine inspectors had warned senior government officials well before the blast that something was likely to happen, pointing to a government memo saying "on-site workers (are) at extreme risk."
He repeated assertions that the CAW added to the tension, prolonging the violent strike as a means to pressure the Ontario government to pass anti-scab legislation.
Warner quoted from minutes of a CAW board meeting in which union head Buzz Hargrove said a CAW adviser had been sent to Yellowknife "to keep a good strike going" and to "just ram the goddam hell out of the scabs."
Pinkerton's, too, suspected what was coming, said Warner, quoting from letters the agency wrote to mine owner Peggy Witte.
Hourie said Monday the events of the day her husband died remain with her.
"People always think there's going to be closure, that time will ease," she said. "It doesn't.
"When something like this happens to your family, the pain stays with you, the hurt stays with you and your husband stays with you."
Most of the children have now grown up without the support the lawsuit was intended to provide, said Hourie, who stays in touch with the other widows.
"It's been a struggle for the families," she said.
"Some children were in Grade 1 when this happened and they haven't had a chance at secondary education. There's no money."
While all of the widows remain alive, some are in poor health.
"This plays on your health, on your emotions, financially, everything," she said. "It's really hard."
Arguments before the Appeal Court's three judges are expected to wrap up Tuesday.
