a day ago
New strikebreaker ban would have prevented deaths, carnage at infamous Giant mine
YELLOWKNIFE, NT, June 17, 2025 /CNW/ - The upcoming federal ban on using strikebreakers in labour disputes would have saved lives and untold hardship at the Giant gold mine, had the law been in place when an underground explosion killed nine miners in 1992, say the authors of a new edition of Dying For Gold: The True Story of the Giant Mine Murders.
Canada's Parliament unanimously passed the "anti-scab" Bill C-58 in June 2024, despite strenuous objections from national business leaders and major corporations. It comes into effect on June 20, covering about a million workers with 22,350 employers. CN Rail subsidiary Autoport used strikebreakers in 2024 during Parliamentary hearings on the bill.
"This has been a long time coming," says journalist Lee Selleck, co-author of Dying For Gold. "It is good to see lessons finally being learned. The lives, the personal costs, the trauma, and countless millions of tax dollars could have been saved." While the mine is closed for a massive environmental cleanup, the tragedy left lasting fractures in Yellowknife's community and beyond.
Selleck and Francis Thompson deliver a riveting expose of one of Canada's most infamous industrial disputes and mass murders, events that have reverberated in the courts and media for decades as the victims' families struggled for compensation and justice.
This aftermath is skillfully unveiled in the new edition, along with evidence that miner Roger Warren, convicted of the murders, did not actually commit the crime – wrapping up a story that was a National Business Book Award finalist in the original edition.
Since then, Dying For Gold inspired CBC's award-winning 2022 podcast, Giant – Murder Underground, in which Selleck took part. He was also an advisor for Giant Mine, the CBC docudrama nominated for three Gemini Awards in 1998.
