Supporting and protecting a diverse workforce.

Mountain Province Diamonds understands the value of including diverse voices in our workforce.  We aim to employ a workforce that reflects the communities in which we operate and foster inclusion and participation across all levels of our organisation.

Our relatively small senior leadership team includes voices from typically underrepresented groups including women, persons with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

At our Gahcho Kué mine, about half of our workforce resides in the Northwest Territories (NT).  Eighteen different NT communities are represented among Gahcho Kué employees and about 28% of our northern workforce come from local indigenous communities.

Approximately 19% of our Gahcho Kué workforce are women.  Though this is slightly higher than the industry average of 16%, we are striving toward gender parity and achieved an 11% increase from 2017 to 2018.  Of the women employed at the mine, approximately 20% were in skilled, professional, and managerial positions.

Mountain Province Diamonds invests in its current and future workforce.  On average, each of Gahcho Kué mine’s approximately 500 employees spends 45 hours in training or development courses each year.  This time is split between health and safety training and supporting the professional development of our workforce.  In 2020, two employees successfully completed the Northern Leadership Development Program at Aurora College in Yellowknife and 24 Indigenous residents were promoted in the Mine Operations department through the Gahcho Kué mine’s Departmental Progression Plan.

Mountain Province Diamonds also invests in the next generation of skilled workers through training and apprenticeship positions. In 2020, Gahcho Kué employed three Mine Professionals in Training and hosted one indigenous Surface Miner Trainee in partnership with the Mine Training Society. Mountain Province Diamonds also supports the Mine Training Society financially, helping them to fulfill other aspects of their mission to assist Indigenous and Northern people in finding long term work in the mining industry through a unique partnership between Indigenous governments, the Government of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories, and the mining industry.

Above all else, Mountain Province Diamonds is committed to prioritising health and safety across the full lifespan of our projects, from exploration through closure. We work together with our workforce to cultivate a culture of workplace safety. We strive to empower individual workers with the policies, practices, tools, information, and authority they require to perform their work safely. One of our key focuses is sharing knowledge, information, and lessons learned from safety incidents and near misses among workers at all levels of our organisation to ensure that our safety practices are ever-improving.

The total recordable injury frequency rate decreased 48.6% between 2018 and 2020, building on a reduction of 38% in the previous year, through the dedicated efforts our employees have made to keep each other safe at work. In December of 2020, we surpassed 3.5 million hours without a lost time injury. In 2020, Gahcho Kué was awarded the John T. Ryan Award for Select Mines from the Canadian Institute of Mining and received an Excellence Award from Canadian Occupational Health and Safety Magazine for being one of Canada’s Safest Employers in the Mining and Natural Resources division in 2020.

Mountain Province Diamonds supports the health and well-being of its workforce, who live and work at the mine for several weeks at a time. In 2018, over 180 Gahcho Kué employees took part in the Know Your Numbers Campaign, which aimed to help employees learn about important health metrics like blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and percent body fat. The mine also offers a fully equipped gym with weight-training and cardio equipment, a gymnasium with basketball, volleyball, badminton, and squash courts, and a running and walking track.

Our Covid-19 response has focused on ensuring not only the health and safety of our employees on site, but also the health and safety of the communities from which they come.