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Mines not meeting Northern worker targets

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NWT diamond mines are not meeting hiring targets for hiring Northern workers, according to a report heard in the legislative assembly April 17. James O'Connor/NNSL photo

The Northwest Territories' three diamond mine owners are not meeting their northern and Indigenous hiring commitments.

NWT diamond mines are not meeting hiring targets for hiring Northern workers, according to a report heard in the legislative assembly April 17.
James O'Connor/NNSL photo

Neither Dominion Diamond Mines (Ekati Diamond Mine and 40 per cent of Diavik Diamond Mine), Rio Tinto (which operates Diavik Diamond Mine and owns 60 per cent of it) nor De Beers Canada (Gahcho Kue Mine) met their local employment targets as set out in their socio-economic agreements with the government of Northwest Territories, the legislative assembly’s Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment heard on April 17.

Each mine in the territory has a non-binding socio-economic agreement with the territory that reflects commitments made during the environmental assessment process.

These agreements lay out what a company doing non-renewable resource development will do to create employment and business opportunities and mitigate the negative impacts of its project on NWT communities and people.

Because the diamond mines are on Crown land, a socio-economic agreement is the only tool the territorial government has to push for the sound use of natural resources.

Mining companies have similar agreements with Indigenous groups called Impact Benefit Agreements, but the GNWT is not party to those.

The effectiveness of these agreements came into question recently at a committee meeting at the legislative assembly, as mining companies revealed that they are not living up to their Northern and Indigenous employment commitments.

Ekati Diamond Mine's employment targets, as laid out in its 1996 socio-economic agreement, are 62 per cent Northern workers during the initial operation phase, and 72 per cent Northern workers when the mine reached full operation.

Of its Northern workers, at least 50 per cent are to be Indigenous.

However Ekati's workforce in 2017 was 47 per cent Northern, said Gaeleen McPherson, the company's vice-president of corporate affairs, and of it's Northern workers, 53 per cent were Indigenous.

We did struggle obviously, from a Dominion perspective, in achieving our employment targets,” said McPherson.

She said this was partly due to the relocation of Dominion's head office from Yellowknife to Calgary.

To offset the loss in NWT employment as a result of the move, Dominion made every community in the territory a pick-up point.

This means Dominion arranges flights for workers from any community to Yellowknife so they can catch a flight out to Ekati.

Diavik Diamond Mine's employment figures were from 2016, an it too failed to reach Northern and Indigenous hiring goals by more than a dozen percentage points.

The mine's targets are 66 per cent Northern, and 40 per cent Northern Indigenous, but the standing heard last weed that its workforce was 47 per cent Northern, 20 per cent Northern Indigenous.

Rebecca Alty, Diavik's manager of communities and communications and a Yellowknife city councillor, said that at more than 1,000 workers, the mine employs twice as many people as it had anticipated it would when it signed the socio-economic agreement.

Although we didn't reach our per cent target, we did actually beat the number of Northerners that we anticipated hiring, but we recognize that our commitment is in percentages and we strive to reach that,” said Alty.

Gahcho Kue came closest to meeting its employment goals, but it also has the lowest hiring targets of the three mines.

March of 2017 marked Gahcho Kue's first full year of commercial production, and in that year, about 53 per cent of employees at the mine were Northern residents, said Gahcho Kue general manager Allan Rodel.

We're two per cent short, but for our first year of operation, (we're) certainly headed in the right direction,” said Rodel.

De Beers Canada's Northern employment target for Gahcho Kue is 55 per cent.

Its socio-econimic agreement, signed in 2013, does not include a target for Northern Indigenous employment.

Wally Schumann, minister of Infrastructure, Tourism and Investment, said increasing Northern employment at the mines is “more complicated than people think.”

Many NWT residents simply don't want to work at the mines, said Schumann, or the rotation schedule doesn't work for them.

If they're not happy with it, they're not going to produce... and it brings other issues,” he said.

Tom Jensen, the deputy minister of Infrastructure, Tourism and Investment, said there are not punitive consequences for mining companies that don't abide by their socio-economic agreements.

The response to not meeting the targets is to redouble our efforts to figure out is there any other way we can find more people to hire,” he said.

Jensen said social issues can be a barrier to employment, and that programs to address those issues could grow the number of Northerners available to work at the mines.

Immigration to NWT is another piece, he said.

We have as a mandate target to bring in 2,000 people into NWT over the life of this assembly and we're not getting there in terms of our target,” said Jensen.

He said the government should look at how to use the immigration system to attract new residents with mining skills.

Kieron Testart, the MLA for Kam Lake, asked if the socio-economic agreements could be used to create scholarships and enhance investments in NWT post-secondary infrastructure and education programs to “secure the participation of Indigenous peoples in the mining workforce.”

It's fine to have an SEA (socio-economic agreement) that has a target of total employment, but if the skills aren't present in that community that can feed that employment, you're never going to hit targets, it's just impossible,” he said.

Schumann said mines do have education initiatives, and some of these are spelled out in their seperate agreements with Indigenous groups.

For example, De Beers is offering scholarships this year to women students looking to study science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) at the University of Waterloo.

Testart said mines often demand clean criminal records, and this presents yet another obstacle to people who may seek employment at the mines.

We have to look at ways to work with the federal government to look at meaningful pardon reform that will allow more of our people to access mining jobs,” he said.

Pamela Strand, the assistant deputy minister of Infrastructure, Tourism and Investment, said her department will be doing a workshop on “site access issues that could include the criminal records checks.”