Mining company concedes resumes of failed applicants in temporary workers case

VANCOUVER – A mining firm is reluctantly turning over the resumes of about 300 failed job applicants for a northern B.C. mining project that is the subject of a court challenge over its Chinese workers.

A lawyer for HD Mining says his clients don’t want to hand over the documents, but they’re making an effort to preempt a federal judge’s order for the government to attempt to retrieve the material.

Alex Stojicevic (stoy-cheh-vich) says the resumes don’t have any particular baring on the case itself, which is a legal challenge of temporary foreign worker permits granted by Human Resources Canada.

Those permits have prompted two unions to argue that Canadians should have been hired for the proposed Murray River project near Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

The company’s reversal comes a day after a Federal Court judge ordered Ottawa to attempt to force the documents from HD Mining, which had repeatedly refused to give them up saying the ministry had no legal authority.

The company is bringing over more than 200 Chinese miners after the federal government agreed with the firm’s opinion that specialized miners could not be found in Canada’s labour market.