Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 01/01) - Last year 13 people were killed on the job in the NWT and Nunavut.

Mining, oil and gas heated up the economy in the North but industry is an incubator for workplace injuries. About 100 people met at the legislative assembly Sunday in honour of the 18th Day of Mourning, as established by the Canadian Labour Congress.

Northwest Territories and Nunavut WCB chair Andy Wong honours workers killed on the job during a ceremony last Sunday. - Thorunn Howatt/NNSL photo

"The fatalities were unusually high in the last few years and we were hoping it was just a blip," said Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) president Penny Ballantyne. Last year's workplace fatalities were lower than the previous year. "Two years in a row we have had a higher rate of fatalities than we had previously."

There has been one death this year at Nanisivik Mine.

The WCB insures for workplace injuries but also has a mandate for prevention. It does workplace inspections and follows up worker complaints. "We are one of the few jurisdictions in Canada that has a prevention and enforcement mandate for safety as well as the enforcement side," said Ballantyne.

Fifteen- to 19-year-olds are hardest hit with work-related accidents. Pieces of a life quilt were displayed at the memorial on Sunday. It is a tapestry of young faces woven together by a common thread -- all the patchwork photos are of young people killed during work.

"It is just heartbreaking when you see all the young faces of all these kids that went to work that day, expecting to carry on with their lives and didn't come home that evening," said Ballantyne. "It's completely unacceptable."

Joe Handley, the minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board, said more inspections and more training are the answers, but the territorial government doesn't have the manpower to check every job. ery job.