Vacation pay is pretty common here in Canada, especially in unionized hourly paid industries or companies where vacation time off is tough to predict and so compensated with money, not so much in salaried positions. I know it from construction and trades where the industry is project-based not long term, i.e., where layoffs and hirings are frequent. Not sure about mining but suspect that is the case there as well, depending on the company and union. Remember Canada is heavily unionized in certain industries. Anyway, in this case there is clearly no union involved but it is up to the parties to reach a contract on it depending on the conditions. Ike