This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Ontario´s mining industry improved its safety performance in 2008 from 2007, according to provisional numbers, which have been released by the Mines and Aggregates Safety and Health Association (MASHA).  This keeps mining on track as one of the safest industries in the province.  Mining´s safety record outpaces sectors such as manufacturing, services, forestry, construction, health care, municipal workers, agriculture and transportation.

The mining industry´s lost time injury rate for 2008 was 0.6 per 200,000 hours worked, which is a 25% improvement compared with the lost time injury rate of 0.8 per 200,000 for 2007.  While this moves the sector closer to zero, there was some slippage in another safety benchmark.  The total medical injury frequency rose to 7.5 per 200,000 hours worked in 2008, compared with 7.1 per 200,0000 hours worked in 2007 — a 6% increase.   However, the severity of those incidents showed a marked improvement of 60%.  In 2008, the severity of injuries was reduced to 54 days from 136 days in 2007. 

Ontario mining´s sector has been steadily becoming safer for decades.  The 2008 lost time injury rate of 0.6 per 200,000 hours is an 87% improvement compared with the lost time injury rate of 4.7 per 200,000 hours in 1985.  Credit for these stronger safety performances reside on the shoulders of every individual who works in the industry.  The statistics are moving in the right direction because of the personal diligence on the safety front and concern for oneself and his and her colleagues.  There are a number of initiatives and institutions supporting these gains.

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Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Last week a Geneva-based group called Covalence SA released its ethical rankings of multinational corporations. The methodology used is convoluted, and the results could be questioned. Points were added and subtracted for working conditions, impact of production, impact of product and institutional impact. For what it is worth, here is how some mining companies ranked.

Three Canadian companies made the list. Kinross Gold of Toronto, Teck Cominco of Vancouver and Barrick Gold of Toronto were ranked 212, 396 and 443, respectively. (Interestingly, these companies ranked higher than Charles Schwab, Chevron, Yahoo, Fannie Mae, Shell and Porsche, among others.)

Other integrated mineral producers fared better than the Canadians: Rio Tinto (7), Anglo American (122), Vale (201), and Xstrata (209). Some fared worse: BHP Billiton (292), Newmont (501) and Freeport-McMoRan (535).

Covalence tracks 550 large companies in 18 separate sectors. Its client roster includes many mining companies as well as Barclays, BMW, Coca-Bola, the Gap, Médecins sans Frontières, Hewlett-Packard and GlaxoSmithKline among others. Besides ethical rankings, the company offers research and reputation management services.

The thought occurred to me that the world is getting complex indeed when we rely on European think-tank to tell us if we are operating ethically.