Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 23/00) - Doug Willy came North for a job at Giant Mine -- and to play hockey. He worked underground, but left to work in recreation. In the late 1970's he moved on to a uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan. His goal was to hire as many aboriginal people as possible.

Willy returned to work with Lupin, and later Diavik, his goal again to maximize Northern involvement in the operations. He is now with the Edmonton-based consulting firm GPC Canada.

Yellowknifelife: Many might associate you just with Diavik Diamond Mines. But you've been in the North for a lot of years.

Willy: I first came up here in 1963. I came up here just for a weekend to play hockey against the Yellowknife team. I was playing with the Edmonton Oil King junior B team. So then after university, I had met two guys. George Taylor at Giant Mine and Shorty Brown.

I remember when we got on the bus to leave, Shorty said, 'Listen if any of you guys are ever looking for a job, give me a call.' So then in summer of 1969 after university ... I phoned up Shorty and George Taylor.

Yellowknifelife: And they said...

Willy: They said, you go to the chamber of mines in Edmonton, there'll be a ticket for you there and you can come up and play hockey with Giant Grizzlies and we'll give you a job underground. That was in 1969.

Yellowknifelife: Did you find it unusual that you were brought in to play hockey?

Willy: You take advantage of opportunities that come along.

I think I got some of the better jobs because of it. I'll tell you some of the influence that hockey had, the guys who were in school at that time, all the people in the territories who came to Akaitcho Hall to go to school. They were all about 10 years younger than I am. So what was the big entertainment in Yellowknife at the time? It was hockey. So these guys went to the games. A lot of these guys are the political leaders in the communities. Hockey got me into meeting a lot of people.

Ten or 15 years later, when I found myself going to communities, they'd say "I remember you, you played hockey when I was in Akaitcho Hall." So it's been unbelievable. With your opportunities. You take them to the fullest. I know hockey has done it for me.

Yellowknifelife: You also worked at Lupin.

Willy: I ended up in Rankin Inlet as the head of human resources for the Keewatin region for the government. The government of the territories, at the time, I think had some excellent opportunities, to bring more Northerners into the work force. But it seemed they kept bringing people up from the South.

In about 1978, it was little frustrating. It turned out there was a job back in Saskatoon in the mining business, uranium mining. What I did there was similar to what I would do at Lupin and here at Diavik. A new mine was starting up and the company wanted to maximize or optimise, the number of aboriginal people in the work force.

Yellowknifelife: Which mine was this?

Willy: Cluff Lake uranium in Northern Saskatchewan. Cluff lake is still the leader in Canada. I'd say right now they are probably 65 per cent of their workforce is aboriginal northerners. I stayed there until 1985. Then Echo Bay said "how would like to come and work for us and we attempted the same thing at Lupin. Although I lived in Edmonton, I spent most of my time at Lupin and in the communities.

Yellowknifelife: How successful was the effort get Northern or aboriginal workforce into Lupin, in your opinion?

Willy: I think it was quite successful, but not to the same extent (as Cluff Lake) and the reason is if you don't try to do these things from day one, its tougher to do it after the fact. So after you have a mine that's been developed and all the infrastructure is in place, in Lupin's case it was very efficient, safe transportation infrastructure from Southern Canada to Lupin. It's tough to change that because the mine was built on that way of thinking.

At Lupin we hired a significant number of people from Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay and Yellowknife. In the early years, we hired 88 people from Yellowknife to work at Lupin. When I left in 1995, there were probably four that were still living here. Even though we'd hired (from Yellowknife). The company hired people based on the fact that they lived in the North but it was the people who decided to move south (air transportation for the fly-in mine gave them the option). At Lupin, I think probably we had about 15 per cent of the workforce which was pretty good. That's why it's so important to start from the beginning.

Yellowknifelife: Enter Diavik. You've been with Diavik since the mid-1990s.

Willy: Officially, my first day was Jan. 1, 1996. In late 1995, I did some work with Rod Davey. (Davey was Diavik president prior to Stephen Prest). When Diavik decided to go further with the advanced exploration, I started.

The role was to start this office and recruit people and develop a strategy for a community affairs program that would make Diavik an NWT company and optimize the opportunities for Northerners.

Yellowknifelife: So you took the experience from Cluff Lake uranium mine and Lupin gold mine, in terms of Northern hiring and planning, and applied that to the Diavik project?

Willy: It's more than that. I also had the opportunity to live in Kugluktuk, Sachs harbour, Cambridge Bay, Fort McPherson. In those places, one of the things I've done, I mean I love the North, my wife is from here which helped a lot. We've moved eight times. In Sachs Harbour, there are about 120 people. We took the opportunity to find out everything we could about people.

The people of the Northwest Territories are unbelievably competent in what they do. You realize they are the best at what they are doing. So all you have to do, in an employment situation, is appreciate that the people of the North have all these skills and all you have to do is adapt those skills to the workplace.

Yellowknifelife: To this point, do you feel Diavik has been successful in making this a Northern project.

Willy: We've had up to 80 per cent. And I think the crew we have right now, from the North are excellent. They know what they have to do and they know what they want to do and they know that is to continue to make sure the benefits and opportunities are given to Northerners.

Yellowknifelife: What about the capacity. Is there going to be a situation when it comes to hiring Northerners? I mean with BHP taking up a large part of the Northern workforce? How do you feel about balancing meeting a percentage target with the capacity that's available?

Willy: There is no doubt capacity is a challenge. But I personally think we're not at it yet. But I think it can be done. It will be a bit of a challenge. That's why it's not one company's responsibility, it's the North's. We need transportation. We have to be able to bring people from outlying communities in to where the work is. One of the most frustrating things I've seen, I travelled to the communities and stayed in the local hotel, and you've got contractors,and the hotel is full of people brought in from the South. There's 20, 30, 40 local people not working. If we have a capacity problem it's because we haven't done anything about it over the last 30 or 40 years.