Agnico wraps up open houses
Agnico Eagle Mines visits each Kivalliq community with latest updates
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
KIVALLIQ
Representatives from Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (AEM) are wrapping up a series of open-house presentations across the Kivalliq with a stop in Coral Harbour today.
Previous open houses were held in Chesterfield Inlet on Oct. 24, Baker Lake on Oct. 25, Rankin Inlet on Oct. 26, and Arviat, Whale Cove, and Naujaat on Nov 1.
Meadowbank community liaison co-ordinator Karen Yip said at press time the open houses in each community had been fairly well attended.
"These open houses feature presentations on the Whale Tail project and the possible use of hovercraft for exploration, while having staff available to assist with employment questions, accept resumes, acknowledge Inuit role model employees, and share information on the apprenticeship program, business opportunities and pre-qualification process," said Yip.
Yip said open houses provide AEM with direct communication with community members and the opportunity to share information. She said the subject matter in each community was the same during the tour.
"Our main message at each stop is we are in your community and want to share information and answer any questions."
In addition to Yip, the AEM team consisted of environment superintendents for Nunavut Ryan Vanengen and Jamie Quesnel, Meadowbank mine manager Luc Chouinard, senior environmental compliance technician Manon Turmel, senior co-ordinator for the Nunavut Inuit Impact Benefit Agreement (IIBA) Candace Ramcharan, senior co-ordinator for communication and community affairs Pujjuut Kusugak and IIBA co-ordinator Courtney Squires.
"We're working toward holding open houses to co-ordinate information and offer multiple opportunities at fewer meetings," said Yip.
"We're looking at about four meetings a year for each community to make them more meaningful and to combat meeting fatigue.
She said AEM was holding numerous meetings in some communities for specific items - for instance, the team visited Chester nine times this year to present employment information and business opportunities.
"We have engaged community agents in each hamlet, and are working with them to assist and provide information to people in their communities," said Yip.
She said AEM plans to hold its next community meetings in the next quarter, which will include information about new training initiatives.
