[Mine safety] Inquiry seekers gain ear -by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 22, 2013)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Two members of a group lobbying to make mining safer in Ontario will take their case to Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi and Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle in Toronto on Tuesday.

Wendy Fram, the mother of one of two miners killed at Vale’s Stobie Mine on June 8, 2011, is chair of a group called MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support).

Her son, Jordan, 26, was killed while working with Jason Chenier, 35, when they were crushed by a run of 350 tons of muck at the mine’s 3,000-foot level near the No. 7 ore pass.

Fram and Sudbury community activist Gerry Lougheed Jr., who has been helping with the MINES campaign, have secured a meeting with the ministers to press their demand for an inquiry.

Fram knows it’s a long shot, and has been thinking about what she’ll say to the ministers since she heard from Lougheed late Friday that the pair had secured a meeting with the politicians.

Coincidentally, a letter from Fram appeared Friday in The Sudbury Star, in which she said she was frustrated “with the silence on this topic from Queen’s Park,” especially with Workers’ Memorial Day scheduled for April 28.

MINES has held public meetings in Sudbury and in Timmins, where another MINES chapter has formed.

Thousands of postcards supporting the call for a mining inquiry have been gathered and many of them sent to former Labour Minister Linday Jeffrey.

Fram said she met with Jeffrey and former Premier Dalton McGuinty when they visited Sudbury last year, but she wasn’t encouraged by that meeting.

She is more optimistic Tuesday’s meeting may produce results.

At the very least, she wants the province to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act to make working conditions safer for miners like her son.

For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.thesudburystar.com/2013/04/22/inquiry-seekers-gain-ear