Each year, Canadian mines with the most impressive safety records are honored with the John T. Ryan Award and this year, Agnico Eagle’s Goldex Mine took home top honors.
On May 2 at the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum’s (CIM’s) 2022 Convention in Vancouver, Goldex received the Institute’s prestigious John T. Ryan Trophy for achieving the lowest reportable injury frequency per 200,000 hours worked in the Quebec-Maritimes region in 2021.
“This award is a real tribute to the dedication and resilience of Goldex employees and supervisors, as well as to the mine’s proactive approach to addressing health and safety issues,” said Sandra Marseille, Goldex health and safety superintendent. “Our health and safety team was also constantly on the frontlines meeting with employees, listening closely, and learning from them, and always reinforcing positive safety behavior.”
This focus on mining every ounce of gold safely and responsibly is reflected in Goldex’s safety performance. The mine posted a combined recordable injury frequency of 0.37 and a total recordable frequency of 1.10 — both records for the mine since the restart of production in 2013.
Josée Michaud, Goldex’s Health & Safety Senior Coordinator says, “Mine production is done safely one task at a time. Goldex didn’t introduce new programs and initiatives, instead we focused on continuously improving the tools we already had in place. We targeted risky tasks and behaviours, even going line by line through the Supervision Formula/Work Card to remind everyone of the tasks and tools to reduce risks in the workplace.”
Goldex’s proactive approach to safety and the resilience of its workforce continues to win recognition from its peers in the mining industry. On June, Goldex also received the FJ O’Connell Award from the Quebec Mining Association for its outstanding safety performance for underground operations more than 400,000 hours worked.
