Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 3, 2007
KITIKMEOT - A program aimed at creating mining jobs for Inuit residents of the Kitikmeot region is about to get underway.
Miramar Mining Corporation, Nunavut's Department of Education, the Kitikmeot Economic Development Commission, the Kitikmeot Inuit Association and Nunavut Arctic College entered into a formal agreement last week to foster a program that will provide underground mine training to aboriginal candidates selected from the Kitikmeot region.
Once the candidates have successfully completed a 16-week training program - the first of which is slated to begin in January - they will be offered positions as mine workers at Miramar's underground Hope Bay gold mine, located north of the Arctic Circle in Nunavut.
"Miramar is going to have to hire a lot of people, and we really have a strong commitment to hire as many as we can from Nunavut," said Heather Duggan, vice-president of human resources for Miramar.
"We're in the process of screening and defining the (first) 12 candidates."
Once the underground mine opens for production in 2008, Duggan expects the mine will require a total workforce of 175 people - 34 per cent of whom will be Inuit employees.
"We guarantee a job for everybody that comes out of the program," said Duggan.
The candidates for the initial round of training in January will be pulled from the Nunavut Community Skills Information System, a database that records education and work qualifications.
The difference with this venture is that candidates who are short on mining skills or do not have a complete education will not be discounted, said Bruce Rigby, a spokesman for the Department of Education.
"If there are candidates who have applied and who we've determined need to do some upgrading in certain areas, we can then start getting them tracked and ready for the next round (of training)" said Rigby.
Rigby said he believes the program is an improvement over similar efforts in the past.
"There's a tendency to come at it from a supply side, where (companies) decide what they need, rather than going to the people and ask what they need. This is about changing that dynamic.
"I think it will give individual Nunavummiut control of their own situation. They'll be able to participate in the economy where their circumstances dictate. They'll be able to identify the things they want to do, rather than having them being prescribed by somebody simply based on what funding is available."
According to Duggan, the program would not have been possible without the combined efforts of all partners.
"Training in the mining industry is very expensive," said Duggan. "You need to get people underground to get that experience. You have to have access to a mine. There are high levels of safety regulations. The equipment is expensive.
"We couldn't do it on our own. And perhaps none of the partners could. But with everybody coming to the table, we can."
