The International Resource Journal: Universal Mine Safety – Where Does Canada Stand? Universal Mine Safety – Where Does Canada Stand? ================================================================================ admin on 11 July, 2009 03:01:00 The Canadian mining industry has long been scrutinized on several fronts; for environmental sustainability issues, the ability for corporations to create lasting community relationships, and of course, for maintaining an adequate level of health and safety standards. After speaking with dozens of mining companies over the last year, operating nationally and internationally, it seemed only appropriate to take a look at where Canada is at on the world stage for mine health and safety. Admittedly, when you look for a problem in an industry, more often than not you will stumble upon story after story supporting your intuition of that problem. Fortunately for Canada, a country with a GDP dominated by the natural resource sector, you can go looking for a mine safety problem – but you won’t find one. For an industry that has been scrutinized in the past, Canada is a global leader in health and safety standards. Organizations take stock Jon Baird, Managing Director for the Canadian Association of Mining Equipment and Services for Export (CAMESE) and President of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) took the opportunity to remind us that in Canada “health and safety regulations are mandated by the provinces, and the Canadian record is great” he explains, adding candidly that “mining is safer than retail in Ontario”. As anyone on the ground or underground would tell you, keeping workers safe is a matter of knowing what the hazards are and being adequately educated about them. The goal of PDAC is to “reduce accidents in exploration to zero”. The PDAC Health and Safety Committee was established in 2005 and along with Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia (AME BC) has conducted a health and safety survey of Canadian mineral exploration companies every year since its formation. Most of the companies surveyed have very few employees, compared with other industries where hundreds or thousands of employees are working at a given time. Because of their lean staffs, exploration companies might not have sufficient experience or statistics to recognize hazardous work environments. The aggregate survey results are available at www.pdac.ca. Company surveys are meant to track health and safety trends across the country in order to promote health and safety awareness, and inspire companies to put accident prevention measures in place. According to Baird, PDAC is working on these areas because health and safety communication, including the sharing of problems and processes, and how to avoid accidents, will ultimately affect the performance of companies all over Canada. “The thing with only implementing guidelines, not communicating them, is that the more government tries to dictate, the less efficient things become” Baird explains. This is the primary reason why communication is so important – if the safety message comes from the top down, it’s more likely to be heard. Luckily, Baird reiterates that in Canada, “the safety record is very, very good” He continues: “Major companies are contributing their own information to the development of health and safety processes. Why? Learn from others. Mining and exploration companies can benefit from having a common practice. They’ve had to do it entirely on their own up until now, but if there’s a wider discussion generated then more stable processes can be implemented”. This is where PDAC comes in to the equation. The softer side of mining and exploration About 15 years ago, the “softer” areas of the mineral exploration industry were not as important in the public eye. Areas like community development and environmental sustainability were simply set aside, not seen as contributing factors to the bottom line. “Those areas are becoming more in the public eye, and the industry’s taking them seriously” Baird assures, adding “in the past, it was everyone for themselves”. Of course – now resource and exploration companies are taking a much more efficient, and thorough approach: the common sense approach to safety on the work site. “For me, the basis of health and safety is good old common sense” Baird says. “In that sense, regulation is not the entire answer. Safety has to be ingrained” he adds. Chris Sabat, legal expert in the areas of health and safety from Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, echoes the ideas that Baird brings to the table. He says “the reality is that the greatest area for improvement is education. It is important to get health and safety policies and procedures in place, and it has to come down from the top. If the CEO comes on to the job site in flip flops and not wearing a hard hat, it sends the wrong message. Even if he’s going nowhere near a site, it’s important to see him setting the example”. He explains that making health and safety a priority for an organization is paramount, and telling the message has to include that safety “is a part of your job, not an extra step that slows you down”. It’s a good thing that the health and safety philosophy has shifted, because with a workforce that has safety ingrained in its everyday practice, there is room to grow the bottom line. Canada is a very entrepreneurial country and Sabat says that “we have a can-do attitude in Canada, we want to get the job done, but sometimes people just proceed and complete the work without stopping to think about safety”. Taking education and training to the next level The message from all parties trying to contribute to the health and safety philosophy is clear: education and training is the way to go when it comes to keeping Canada’s stellar record. And with such an amazing record, there is an opportunity to set an example for international jurisdictions – although immediately harmonizing standards across the country and beyond isn’t necessarily the answer. Sabat explains that “Canada’s provinces can learn from each other, but dividing jurisdictions is not always great for proper governance. When you have ten provinces trying to do the same things you really wonder”. That theory goes for the idea of international harmonization as well – what’s good for the goose might not necessarily be good for the gander. Currently, as many as 10,000 Canadian mining or mining prospecting companies are operating around the world – in as many as 100 countries at any one time. The Canadian industry itself has developed into one of the safest anywhere, and Canadians are taking their safety approaches with them when they go to do business, and explore jurisdictions elsewhere. The only way to go from here, according to the experts, is up. Baird says: “there is no industry sector in the world that Canada dominates more than the exploration and mining sector. There are bigger sectors, but in terms of how we interact with the world, in terms of investing and supplying and exploring in mining, we are dominant. We have a mining machine unlike any other country”. Therefore, taking care of the international stakeholders on a global scale will be a continued area of focus for safety experts and organizations like PDAC and other Canadian mining associations. Sabat says it best: “will the people in those other countries where we operate want to have a Canadian in their back yard if they’re seen to not take care of local communities?” Health and safety – everybody assumes that there’s a story there, that there should be a problem. But there are surprisingly strict health and safety regimes here. When you work in Alberta and the regs are such, you will go to Nigeria and take albtera’s regime and make sure your employees follow the regime there. They absolutely want their employees to go home safe at night, want the villages they’re in to be sustainable that they have access to healthcare and education. Canadians have a core value when they go internationally to work they want to make money , but they bring the Alberta advantage ethos when they go internationally. Like apples and oranges According to Sabat, a big challenge for experts trying to get a hold on the international health and safety landscape is difficult – like comparing apples to oranges. This is just one reason why international standards, that can apply to all jurisdictions, will be tough to manage. Although some countries are very much on par with Canada’s safety record, many don’t take into account things like occupational diseases (i.e. asbestos poisoning) and injuries when calculating accidents or problems that take miners and explorers off the work site. Luckily for Canada, everything is accounted for. Essentially, before any kind of international safety standards can be developed, companies will need to evaluate and compare with other organizations what the highest standard is for health and safety, and figure out how they can improve. The next step is to communicate those ideas and processes with each other in a shared learning process – whether workers are operating above ground or off the radar. For more information on Gowlings, visit www.gowlings.com. What is OHSAS 18001? OHSAS 18000 is an international occupational health and safety management system specification. It comprises two parts, 18001 and 18002 and embraces a number of other publications. For the record, the following other documents, amongst others, were used in the creation process: * BS8800:1996 Guide to occupational health and safety management systems * DNV Standard for Certification of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems(OHSMS):1997 * Technical Report NPR 5001: 1997 Guide to an occupational health and safety management system * Draft LRQA SMS 8800 Health & safety management systems assessment criteria * SGS & ISMOL ISA 2000:1997 Requirements for Safety and Health Management Systems * BVQI SafetyCert: Occupational Safety and Health Management Standard * Draft AS/NZ 4801 Occupational health and safety management systems Specification with guidance for use * Draft BSI PAS 088 Occupational health and safety management systems * UNE 81900 series of pre-standards on the Prevention of occupational risks * Draft NSAI SR 320 Recommendation for an Occupational Health and Safety (OH and S) Management System OHSAS 18001 is an Occupation Health and Safety Assessment Series for health and safety management systems. It is intended to help organizations to control occupational health and safety risks. It was developed in response to widespread demand for a recognized standard against which to be certified and assessed. (For more information visit http://www.ohsas-18001-occupational-health-and-safety.com) Health and safety is the responsibility of everyone in exploration Ensuring healthy and safe working conditions for individuals employed on an exploration project is the responsibility of everybody involved in the exploration process. Company executives have the responsibility to put in place management systems that will prevent, monitor, evaluate and enable action to be taken on health and safety accidents. Here is a set of guidelines to assist boards of junior exploration companies establish effective health and safety policies and protocols for their companies. Project managers should: * Be aware of the kinds of accidents, risks and hazards that can befall individuals working in exploration * Take every possible precaution to avoid these hazards * Educate those in their charge about these risks and provide adequate training to avoid or deal with them * Have in place emergency measures to deal with accidents if and when they occur All employees are responsible for the health and safety of themselves and coworkers by: * refusing to do unsafe work * highlighting unsafe conditions to their supervisors * pointing out unsafe conditions to coworkers so that coworkers can refuse to dounsafe work Employees need to be assured that their health and safety is paramount and that their managers and their coworkers have taken the utmost care and precautions to protect them from harm. (From www.pdac.ca)