The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
While hundreds came out for the inaugural Family Fun Fest at Bell Park to celebrate Labour Day, three families were there to honour their loved ones’ memories. Family members of Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram where at the park gathering signatures to convince the government of Ontario to hold an inquiry into the mining industry.
Family members say it’s time to have another look into the industry since it has been more than 30 years since the last inquiry, with many deaths due to mining accidents.
Ethan Dufoe, father of Lyle Dufoe, who died in a Timmins mining accident in 2007, says there’s been too many deaths since the last review of the Mining Act.
“The act hasn’t been reviewed in 30 years, when they had Ham Commission review it (1974). There’s been 92 deaths in Ontario since then. One of them my son,” Dufoe said.
The family members say they never got a straight answer as to why the province couldn’t get an inquiry going.
Jordan’s sister, Briana Fram, saw a double standard emerge after the Elliot Lake mall collapse tragedy.
“I’m not really sure why they don’t want an inquiry into the mines. We haven’t had a straight answer from the minister. They told us we couldn’t have one because it conflicts with the inquest, but the mall in Elliot Lake, they were able to have an inquest and an inquiry going on at the same time, in a shorter amount of time,” Fram said.
The “not the right time” excuse isn’t convincing Dufoe, either.
“They are saying it is not the time because there are charges laid against Vale. Which I find ridiculous, because Vale will get charged under the law that existed today, not the one coming tomorrow,” Dufoe said.
He said there is a major hurdle to getting this inquiry going: communication.
“Toughest challenge right now is to get the government to listen to us. We tried petitioning the government with France Gelinas back in 2008. We had 3,500 signatures from sons and relatives and railway workers. Gelinas read the petition in the provincial parliament,” Dufoe said.
For the rest of this article, please go to the Sudbury Star website: http://www.thesudburystar.com/2012/09/04/families-of-mine-victims-want-inquiry