Royal Oak Mines Incorporated was a gold mining company, founded in 1990 by Margaret "Peggy" Witte (now known as Margaret Kent) in Kirkland, Washington. The company held numerous gold and base metal properties in Canada, including the Giant Mine in the Northwest Territories, Pamour Mine in Ontario, Hope Brook Mine in Newfoundland, Colomac Mine in the Northwest Territories, and the Kemess Mine in British Columbia. The company also had significant interests in minerals in China through Asia Materials (44% share) and Highwood Resources (39% share). The company reported nearly US$600 million in assets, and loss of $4.4 million on revenues of US$187 million for fiscal 1996. Its Hopebrook and Colomac mines were closed in 1997. Low gold prices of 1997-1998 caused Royal Oak to go bankrupt in April 1999, and its mining assets were liquidated. Labour dispute Royal Oak Mines' operations at the Giant Mine in Yellowknife became infamous in Canada during the 1990s as the site of a protracted and violent industrial relations dispute that lasted eighteen months. The declining price of gold led to Witte demanding pay cuts, which the Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers union (CASAW) Local 4 refused, arguing that the company was also lax on safety. The company locked out the union and flew in strikebreakers . On September 18, 1992, at the height of the labour dispute, an explosion in a drift of the mine, 750 ft (230 m) underground, killed nine strikebreakers/replacement workers riding in a man-car. For 13 months after the blast, the RCMP interrogated hundreds of strikers, their families, and supporters, wiretapping their telephones and searching their houses. Owner Margaret Witte said that there would be no negotiations with the union unless an arrest was made. Criminal charges Union member and dismissed miner Roger Warren later confessed to and was convicted by a jury of nine counts of second degree murder, being sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2004, he blamed Royal Oak Mines, the security company, and his union. He argued that a simple screen and padlock over a broken window would have dissuaded him, and that he was only capable of the bombing because replacement workers had been "dehumanized" by his union. CAW members Al Shearing and Tim Bettger were sentenced to two and a half and three years in prison, respectively. Both were convicted of painting anti-strikebreaker graffiti and setting an explosion in a ventilation shaft on