The Ontario Ministry of Labour said it's on track to release its final Mining, Health, Safety and Prevention Review report in late March.
William Lin, a ministry spokesperson, said the review's final report will focus on six key issues related to mining health and safety.
Those key issues are: the internal responsibility system; training, skills and labour supply issues; health and safety hazards; emergency preparedness; the occupational health and safety system's ability to meet the demands of the mining sector; and evaluating the health and safety implications of new technologies.
The province's mining health and safety review started in January 2014 thanks in part to a concerted Sudbury lobbying effort by the United Steelworkers local and the Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone's Support (MINES) committee, which included the family members of two miners who were killed at Vale’s Stobie Mine in 2011.
In September 2014 the ministry released a progress report that made early recommendations to improve health and safety in Ontario's mines.
The recommendations included new guidelines for high visibility clothing in mines.
The ministry also outlined in the interim report how it updated its Joint Health and Safety Committee Certification Training Program.
Training through the program will focus on a minimum of six hazards and strengthen the mining sector's internal responsibility system.
The progress report described ministry support for two mining health and safety research projects.
The first is the creation of the Ontario Mining Exposure Database. The ministry reached out to the Occupational Cancer Research Centre to build a database that will track incidents of illness and miners' exposure to a number of carcinogenic substances.
The database will help the mining sector prevent exposure to dangerous substances and predict the future risk of disease among workers.
The second research project, conducted by Laurentian University's Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health (CROSH), is on foot-transmitted vibrations for operators of underground mining equipment.
CROSH received two grants in July – one for $58,836 and the other for $49, 861 – to develop an inexpensive tool that can measure a worker's exposure to vibrations, and work on protective equipment, such as mats and special boots, to reduce vibrations.
Lin said the ministry's final report is expected to expand on the findings and recommendations from last year's progress report.
