The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
The deaths of two more men in a Sudbury-area mine can’t halt the work of those involved in Ontario’s Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review, says its chair.
What it can and will do is strengthen the resolve of those conducting it to continue and produce what George Gritziotis calls “deliverables” so the review can have an impact on the mining industry as soon as possible.
Gritziotis, who is Ontario’s chief prevention officer, was saddened, as so many Sudburians were this week, by news that two men were killed at First Nickel’s Lockerby Mine.
Marc Methe, 34, and Norm Bisaillon, 49, died early Monday morning after being struck by a fall of material, preceded by a seismic event, believed to have been a factor in the accident.
The men were experienced drillers with Taurus Drilling Services. Tragedies such as this one, and the death exactly one month earlier of millwright Paul Rochette, 36, and critical injury of a 28-year-old millwright at Vale’s Copper Cliff Smelter Complex, hit the community hard, said Gritziotis.
But there is no comparing the community’s grief to that of the families affected, said Gritziotis. That suffering and loss will move the review’s advisory committee forward in its one-year review.
Gritziotis said the appeal for him of heading the review was the assurance he could make recommendations and act immediately to make mining workplaces safer.
That opportunity might not have been afforded to him in other “exercises” such as the mining inquiry many people were demanding.
So, while Gritziotis has had to hit the pause button because of mining tragedies twice during the review, which started Jan. 1, he can’t let them stop the process.
Anyone who is outraged about mining deaths should, instead of “sitting in the bleacher seats,” join in the review and help the advisory committee fix the system, said Gritiziotis.
“At the end of the day, are you going to say, ‘This is how I think it should be done’ or take part and play a role and make this better?'”
By the end of June or early July, the advisory group will release a summary of submissions from its public consultations and Gritziotis said he could release recommendations made in his role as chief prevention officer before then.
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