OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada will rule on a long-running dispute over compensation for the widows of nine men murdered during a labour dispute at a northern gold mine 16 years ago.
It's a case that could force unions to take responsibility for violent members and make security services accountable for failing to keep people safe.
The high court, in a decision released without comment Thursday, agreed to review the claims of the Giant Mine widows. They won $10 million in damages after their husbands were killed in an underground explosion during a violent strike at the Yellowknife mine in 1992, but saw that award quashed on appeal.
"This case does raise some very, very important legal issues," said Jeff Champion, lawyer for the widows. "I think it likely will be a landmark decision."
The underground bombing came during a bitter strike-lockout in which now-defunct Royal Oak Mines used non-union replacement workers.
Roger Warren, who planted the explosives, is serving a life sentence on nine counts of second-degree murder.
A trial judge hearing a civil lawsuit by the widows ruled in their favour in 2004. Justice Arthur Lutz ruled that Warren, Royal Oak, the labour union involved, the Pinkerton's security firm which had been hired by the mine's owners, and the Northwest Territories government all shared blame for creating conditions that led to the bombing.
Lutz wrote that Royal Oak "deliberately ignored or was wilfully blind to the clear and present dangers." He also criticized the union, an affiliate of the Canadian Auto Workers, for "assuming a war-like mentality against the company" and using the dispute to lobby for legislation outlawing replacement workers.
Lutz also awarded $580,000 to miner Jim O'Neill, who discovered the bodies of his dead colleagues. O'Neill has joined the other claimants in carrying the case to the Supreme Court.
But Lutz's decision was overturned last year on appeal by a judicial panel that ruled he failed to consider whether Warren would have planted the explosives if everyone had acted more reasonably.
Champion said the Supreme Court decision to review that ruling puts two issues back on the national legal agenda.
"The first issue is whether security officials should be responsible if they don't provide adequate security," he said. "The second issue that we raised was whether unions should be responsible for the violence of their members during a strike."
The CAW has argued that unions don't have the same control over their members that employers have over staff and so can't be held as liable for their actions. As well, it argues the union shouldn't be blamed for the sins of its affiliate.
The civil case was filed in 1994 by the territorial Workers' Compensation Board in an effort to recoup money to help support the widows and their 17 children.
"Now, most of them are raised," said Champion. "It's gratifying to the families that we're going to be able to go to the Supreme Court, but it's also frustrating that it's taken this long."
The widows have had to make do with standard workers' compensation pensions.
Champion said the case could come before the court as early as next June or as late as October.
"We're going to get this on as quickly as possible."
Although the widows have mostly remained silent while the case remains before the courts, Doreen Hourie spoke to The Canadian Press in October 2007 at the appeal hearing.
"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.
"People always think there's going to be closure, that time will ease. 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."
