Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The CP reports on the Canadian applicants rejected by HD Mining as it chose instead to staff its Murray River coal project solely with low-rights temporary immigrant workers:

The unions, which are more broadly seeking a judicial review of Ottawa's decision to issue permits to the workers in the first place, say their findings justify the legal challenge.

They filed documents to the Federal Court late Friday outlining some of the qualifications found within the tossed resumes.

One applicant had more than 30 years of wide-ranging and extensive experience in all aspects of underground mining, while another had 20 years of experience, including three as an underground operations supervisor, according to their submission.

Other sample applicants had six years experience, including three in an underground coal mine, while another had completed an "underground miner hard rock common core" certificate. At least three more had three years and experience installing ventilation, operating equipment and specializing in construction, diamond drilling and production.

"(There was) a full gamut of obviously qualified people," Cochrane argued.

But he said he's still unclear as to why the company would have found the applicants unemployable.

"That part is hard to determine from my perspective. It just looks like the Canadian applicants were discounted."

And it surely can't escape notice that it's taken a persistent effort by unions to bring the truth to light, even as HD Mining and the Harper Cons teamed up to keep Canadian workers out of the Murray River jobs.

- Errol Mendes wonders whether the Cons' omnibus environmental deregulation might be an attempt to escape the federal government's constitutional duty to consult with First Nations. And Bruce Cheadle reports that the Cons' advertising spending continues to balloon long after any actual productive stimulus has come to an end.

- Kim MacKrael discusses the effect of strict party discipline in the House of Commons, while Murray Mandryk notes that the Sask Party is following the Cons' pattern of having backbenchers do nothing but read a script prepared by the party's central command.

- Meanwhile, the Leader-Post offers its support to the new federal boundaries developed by Saskatchewan's boundary commission.

- Finally, the Broadbent Institute has unveiled a new introduction page for its Equality Project.