Bourque wants response from BHP
Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jan 17/01) - Welder Joe Bourque is still waiting to hear from BHP Diamonds Inc.
Bourque claims he is blacklisted from working at the Ekati diamond mine site and he wants someone at BHP to tell him why.
He says Yellowknife welding companies hired to do work at the mine have been told by BHP that they cannot bring him on site.
Bourque, born in Aklavik and a resident of Yellowknife, has welding, gasfitting, plumbing and pressure welding tickets.
In a recent Yellowknifer story about Bourque, BHP spokesperson Graham Nicholls said Bourque's name has never been submitted for security clearance. If it was submitted, he said, the company would take it into consideration.
At that time, Yellowknifer contacted three local welding companies and a spokesperson for one confirmed that BHP would not allow them to bring Bourque to the mine site, but declined to say why. Principals of the other two companies did not return calls.
Bourque said the security has nothing to do with it.
"I've been out there at least 10 times between 1997 and 1999 and never needed security clearance," Bourque said.
"I want them to talk to me."
Asked if he had filed any complaints with safety or labour groups, Bourque said he has not because he first wants to know why the company won't let contractors bring him out to work at the mine.
Bourque said he believes the trouble relates to a December 1998 incident at the Ekati mine which occurred while he was welding in the back of a haul truck.
While working with a cutting torch and an air arc unit -- an air-arc unit can spray sparks and is usually used to cut thick steel -- Bourque said his jacket, located below him and on top of his tool box, caught fire.
Bourque said he climbed down a ladder and extinguished the fire.
There was no second man, or what is commonly known as a fire watch, during the mishap.
"Because I voiced concern about safety, not to mention the fact that at any given time there (is) several million dollars worth of equipment in the truck stop, I am on the shitlist," Bourque said in a statement to Yellowknifer.
"If voicing my concerns in the matter of safety, for both myself and the BHP property and going to the BHP safety man and expressing this makes me a troublemaker. So be it," he also wrote.
Nicholls, contacted Monday afternoon, maintains that Bourque requires security clearance to be on site.
As for Bourque being on site previously, Nicholls said in the past the security policy was not as "rigorously enforced."
On safety, Nicholls said BHP would not prevent a worker from returning because of a safety mishap. He said imposing that condition would not be "realistic".
