More than three years after several employees at the Ekati diamond mine were fired without cause, an adjudicator has ruled that the mine’s former owner doesn’t owe them termination pay.
At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Dominion Diamond Mines suspended operations at the mine and hundreds of employees were furloughed. While some of those employees were recalled to work months later, several were notified that they were being immediately terminated as the company faced financial troubles.
Dominion would not confirm in September 2020 how many jobs were cut. An email recently shared with Cabin Radio, however, indicates 12 employees were let go on September 29 that year.
Four of those employees filed complaints with the NWT’s employment standards office claiming they were terminated without sufficient notice and were therefore owed termination pay. The office agreed and in decisions on July 20, 2022, found the four employees were owed wages ranging from $4,141 to $21,582.
But court orders related to insolvency proceedings complicated employees’ efforts to get paid.
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Dominion had filed for protection from creditors in April 2020.
Legal counsel for FTI Consulting, the court-appointed monitor over Dominion’s affairs, said in April 2021, there was “no realistic prospect that unsecured creditors would receive anything” from Dominion. They said the monitor would not be taking any steps regarding the employees’ claims.
The Court of the Queen’s Bench of Alberta ordered in November 2021 that Dominion’s remaining assets be transferred to a creditor trust and that all but retained claims against the company “be irrevocably and forever expunged, released and discharged.” Those retained claims did not include any wages owed to former employees.
Dominion Diamond and its directors appealed the orders from the NWT employment standards office regarding wages owed to former employees in September 2022. Their legal counsel argued that the court orders quashing unretained claims superseded the orders of the employment standards office.
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In decisions in all four cases on December 6, 2023, adjudicator Louis Sebert agreed.
A former Ekati employee, who asked Cabin Radio that they not be named for employment reasons, said they believe “it’s a cautionary tale of the law versus ethics,” particularly when it comes to the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, or CCAA. Under the federal act, financially troubled corporations can seek protection from creditors as they restructure their financial affairs.
“The rights of workers who have given their lives to a company can simply be discarded,” the former employee wrote. “Until the laws around the CCAA are changed, Canadian workers must continue to be prepared for the worst.”
Ekati was sold to Arctic Canadian Diamond Mine, a company formed by some of Dominion’s creditors, in February 2021. Australia-based Burgundy Diamond Mines then bought Arctic Canadian’s assets, including the mine, in July 2023.
