As we approach International Mining’s June issue with its safety focus, the excellent news from Canada is that mining was the second safest industry among Ontario’s industrial sectors in 2009. The mining sector achieved a collective lost time injury rate 0.6 incidents per 200,000 hours worked, which came next to the education sector with a lost time injury rate of 0.5 per 200,000 hours worked in 2009. The average lost time injury rate for all industrial sectors was 1.3 in 2009. Mining’s 0.6 rate for lost time incidents was ahead of the electrical industry and the pulp and paper sector, both at 0.9, and ahead of the average for manufacturing at 1.0 incidents per 200,000 hours worked.All industries in Ontario are working to improve safety in their workplaces and deal with their own special circumstances and conditions in their own ways. Compared with many other jurisdictions, Ontario stands out as home to safe and productive workplaces. Within that context, mining has worked extremely hard to improve its safety performance. The 0.6 lost time injury rate of 2009 is a 57% improvement compared with the lost time injury rate of 1.4 in 2000.

For 2009, mining was three times safer than forestry, construction and health care, which all had lost time injury rates of 1.8 per 200,000 hours worked and four times safer that agriculture and transportation, which had lost time injury rates of 2.4.

Mining safety statistics are moving in the right direction because of personal diligence and concern for one’s self and one’s colleagues. There are a number of initiatives and institutions supporting this progress. Ontario Mining Association (OMA) programs, the Internal Responsibility System, inspections and programs from the Ministry of Labour, regulatory changes and adjustments to Common Core skills training along with the role of the sectoral safety group Workplace Safety North and unions have played strong parts in these gains.

“Overall, employees in the Ontario mining industry are safe, highly skilled, highly paid and highly productive. While the safety performance of Ontario’s mining industry day-in and day-out is certainly worthy of recognition, no one in the industry would consider it good enough. Collective efforts on many fronts to get these various incident statistics to zero are ongoing throughout the industry,” the OMA reports.

The OMA is holding a conference — The future of mining in Ontario: Is it golden? — June 13 to 15, 2010 in North Bay. One of the presenters at the conference is Candys Ballanger-Michaud, President and CEO of Workplace Safety North. Her topic is New Mine Safety Organisation’s Role in Boosting Industry’s Safety Performance.”

Ontario