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HD Mining’s decision to bring in Chinese miners with specialized expertise has sparked controversy in the Canadian mining sector.
Privately-held HD Mining International is at the center of a debate about the use of temporary foreign workers in the mining industry.
The company is 55-percent owned by China’s Huiyong Holdings, which operates six mines in that country, with another three soon to start up. Canadian Dehua International Mines Group owns 40 percent and another investor holds the remaining 5 percent.
HD is focused on developing its Murray River project near Tumbler Ridge, BC, where it aims to build a mine to extract metallurgical coal deposits at depths of up to 1,000 meters. In March 2012, HD received a permit from the provincial government to extract up to 100,000 metric tons of material from the site.
Temporary foreign workers bring longwall-mining knowledge
To mine the deposits, HD is planning to employ the underground longwall-mining technique. This process is not in use in Canada, though it is practiced in China and some parts of the United States.
Under the longwall method, giant shearers slice the coal into long vertical strips between 150 and 300 meters wide and up to 3.5 kilometers long. The coal is then dropped onto a conveyor belt that extracts it from the mine. The roof of the mine is permitted to fall in behind the shearers as they move down the length of the seam.
As this is a highly-mechanized form of mining, HD plans to import specialized equipment from China for the project. It has also received a permit from the Canadian federal government to bring in 201 workers with longwall-mining expertise from China under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Recent headlines drew attention to the employment of foreign miners
The company said it is bringing in the workers in response to a shortage of Canadian miners who are trained in the longwall method. “HD made several recruitment efforts,” said Jody Shimkus, vice president of Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at the company, in an October 26 telephone interview. “We emphasized the longwall-mining technique throughout the process, but no one can do it.”
“There is only one other underground coal operation in BC,” she added. “But it uses the room-and-pillar method.” Under this process, coal is mined horizontally, leaving some material to support the roof of the mine. “And because this equipment is not currently in use in Canada, it’s very difficult to train.”
To hire foreign workers in Canada, companies must submit an application for a labor market opinion (LMO) from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. Under that process, employers must prove the worker is filling a labor shortage and that they have “conducted reasonable efforts to hire or train Canadians for the job,” according to the government department’s website.
“We had an active recruitment program that included running advertisements in nine different publications,” said Shimkus. “We submitted an LMO application and received a positive response to proceed.”
Shimkus pointed out that these permits only apply to bulk sample removal from the site, and not the mine itself, should it go ahead. “We also included an initiative to transition this skill set to Canadians over a period of 10 years,” she said. “Of course, that would be subject to receiving approval for the mine. We have also had discussions with government and colleges.”
Temporary foreign workers in the mining industry have been in the news lately due to a recent article on The Tyee that claims that some recruiters in China are demanding fees of up to $12,500 to obtain jobs for Chinese miners in Canada. Shimkus denied that HD has any connection to this practice. The BC government is now investigating the allegations.
“We have absolutely no affiliation with any recruiters in China,” she said. “[The Murray River] workers are from our parent company, and they are here temporarily. When the job is done, they will return to the parent company in China.”
Union president favors a longer-term solution
Jim Sinclair, president of the BC Federation of Labour, doubts HD’s claim that it was unable to find qualified miners in the province. “We feel the company never had any intention to hire local people,” he said in a telephone interview on October 25. “Mines are full of millwrights and a range of other people with lots of expertise. We find it hard to believe they weren’t able to find one person who could do the job.”
Sinclair also opposes the use of the Temporary Foreign Worker program, regardless of whether there is a skill shortage. “It is absolutely the wrong way to go about economic development,” he said. “The profit leaves the country, the product leaves the country, even the wages leave the country. The program also allows employers to pay foreign workers up to 15 percent less than they would pay a Canadian with the same skills — a practice that I don’t think many people feel is a Canadian value.”
Instead, Sinclair favors a more immigration-based approach. “We need to invite foreign workers to come and stay in the country, and to bring their families. That gives them the freedom to move on if things don’t work out with an employer. As it is, temporary workers can’t bring their families. They have no freedom and no rights.”
Opposition mining critic places blame with provincial government
Doug Donaldson, a New Democratic Party member of the BC legislature and the official opposition mining critic, places much of the blame for the situation at the feet of the provincial government of Premier Christy Clark.
“It’s incumbent on the government when it is signing agreements with international companies to put in stipulations that BC workers are trained to work on these projects,” he said.
He also said that his constituents, many of whom live in communities with 60 to 90 percent unemployment, would welcome opportunities like this, even though they are short term. “For many miners, six to eight months [the expected duration of the jobs at Murray River] is a full season,” he said. “When they see foreign workers coming in and taking these jobs, it’s hard for them to stomach.”
“I think it shows a lack of focus on the part of the BC Liberals when it comes to putting the province’s workers first,” he added.
Securities Disclosure: I, Chad Fraser, hold no positions in any of the companies mentioned in this article.
