NORTH BAY, ON — Each year, Workplace Safety North (WSN), the provincial health and safety association for mining, forestry, and paper, printing, and converting sectors, recognizes Ontario workplaces with a strong safety culture.
“The President’s Award is our highest provincial health and safety honour, and recognizes exceptional commitment to the prevention of illness and injury, and to continuous improvement in occupational health and safety,” says Paul Andre, WSN President and Chief Executive Officer.
“When organizations make the health and safety of its workers top priority, they show employees, customers, and the community in general, that their values are in the right place. And people want to do business with, and work for, companies with that kind of integrity,” says Andre.
“Congratulations to all winners for your dedication to health and safety. Workplace Safety North is honoured to recognize the time and effort that goes into ensuring workers’ well-being, and creating and maintaining a healthy and safe workplace – well done!”
President’s Award winners for health and safety excellence
Mining sector: DeBeers Group of Companies, Victor Mine, James Bay Lowlands 90 km west of Attawapiskat
Forestry sector: Brinkman and Associates Reforestation Ltd., Thunder Bay
Paper, Printing, and Converting sector and Small Business sector: Wellington Produce Packaging, Mount Forest
Northern Ontario Business: Alex MacIntyre and Associates, Kirkland Lake
Workplace Excellence Award winners
Earlier this year, 24 companies received a Workplace Excellence Award, recognizing workplace excellence in health and safety. In order to qualify for a Workplace Excellence award, companies must complete an assessment of current health and safety programs, note areas for improvement, and develop an action plan to improve their safety performance.
All submissions are considered for the President’s Award, and scoring is based on self-assessment as well as statistical performance over the past two calendar years. Top scoring firms were officially presented with the President’s Award at the September WSN annual general meeting in North Bay.
Alamos Gold Inc. – Young-Davidson Mine, Matachewan
Alex MacIntyre and Associates, Kirkland Lake
Brinkman and Associates Reforestation, Thunder Bay
Cementation Canada, North Bay
DeBeers Group of Companies – Victor Mine, James Bay Lowlands 90 km west of Attawapiskat
DMC Mining Services, Vaughan
Domtar, Dryden
Dumas Contracting, Timmins
Fleming’s Trucking and Logging, Hilton Beach
Glencore – Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, Falconbridge
Goldcorp – Porcupine Gold Mines, South Porcupine
Goldcorp – Red Lake Gold Mines, Balmertown
KGHM – Sudbury Operations, Sudbury
Kidd Operations – Glencore Canada, Timmins
Kirkland Lake Gold Macassa Mine, Kirkland Lake
Lac des Iles Mine, Thunder Bay
Nordic Minesteel Technologies, North Bay
Redpath Canada, North Bay
Resolute Forest Products, Thunder Bay Mill Operations
SCR Mining and Tunnelling L.P., Val Caron
Tahoe Canada – Lake Shore Gold Corp, Timmins
Technica Mining, Lively
Wallbridge Mining Company, Lively
Wellington Produce Packaging, Mount Forest
The purpose of the Workplace Excellence (WE) Awards is twofold. First, companies complete an easy-to-follow assessment of their current health and safety programs, which enables them to identify areas for improvement and create an action plan. Second, the program provides external recognition to those companies actively engaged in improving health and safety performance.
Caption: Workplace Safety North President’s Award winner for Ontario paper, printing, and converting sector, and small business sector: Wellington Produce Packaging, Mount Forest; Ken Hincks (holding awards) of with WSN staff, left to right: Tom Welton, Paul Andre, and Thom Foster.