SUDBURY, ONT. — Former mining firm First Nickel Inc., now out of business, was fined $1.3 million following a trial in Sudbury, Ont. recently for offences related to the deaths of two miners caused by falling material.
First Nickel was a mining company located of Chelmsford, Ont. and the indident occurred in the Lockerby Mine in Chelmsford May 6, 2014, noted a Ministry of Labour statement.
The convictions under the Ontario Regulation 854/90 (Mines and Mining Plants) and the Occupational Health and Safety Act included:
- a fine of $250,000 for failing as an employer to ensure a workplace in an underground mine is kept free of accumulations or flow of water which might endanger a worker, contrary to section 87(1)(a) of the regulation;
- a fine of $350,000 for failing as an employer to ensure “an employer shall develop a quality control program for work in an underground mine to ensure that the ground support systems that are specified in the mine design are properly installed and remain effective while in use”;
- a fine of $300,000 for failing as an employer to ensure “where in an underground mine a potential or actual danger to the health or safety of a worker has not been remedied or removed at the end of a work shift, a record in writing shall be made by the supervisor of the work shift and signed by the supervisor describing the dangerous condition”; and
- a fine of $150,000 for failing as an employer to ensure “before work is begun in a workplace in an underground mine, the ground conditions of the workplace shall be examined for dangers and hazards and, if required, made safe” (section 66(1) of the regulation).
The fine is the largest one levied in an Ontario court for a mining fatality said the ministry.
The mine closed in 2015.
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