The ministry’s Mining Health and Safety Program (MHSP) will collaborate with its safety partners on several occupational health and safety initiatives between April 1, 2017, and March 31, 2018. Communication with the public on the sector plan and health and safety focuses are facilitated through Workplace Safety North (WSN) and the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association (IHSA).

Mining review

The following bullet points provide a high-level description of the status of the implementation of the Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review’s (MHSPR) 18 recommendations:

  • Practical implementation of the MHSPR recommendations began in July 2015 in accordance with a formal work plan.
  • All 18 recommendations of the MHSPR were formally prioritized to ensure the implementation of those recommendations that would have the biggest impact on health and safety in the mining sector were implemented as soon as possible.
  • On January 1, 2017 amendments to Regulation 854 – Mines and Mining Plants came into force as per the recommendations made from the MHSPR. These amendments included requirements for:
    • Risk Mangement Program Section 5.1
    • Water Mangement Program Section 87.1
    • Traffic Control Program Section 105.1
    • Record of Occurrence related to seismic events Section 72.

The Ministry is committed to completing the work required to implement all the recommendations from the MHSPR to further enhance worker health and safety in Mines and Mining Plants.

Mining inspector video

The plan this year is to develop a surface operation video to cover aspects of conveyor guarding based on some of the new requirements in Section 196 that came into force on July 1, 2016. The video will provide information to stakeholders to aid in compliance with the requirements. This will add to the collection posted on the Ministry of Labour website.

Webinars

The MHSP will continue to collaborate with WSN in the development of webinars to support the mining enforcement blitzes planned for 2017-2018.