Both my dad and grandpa mined copper in B.C., near my hometown of Penticton.
As the daughter and granddaughter of miners I grew up on stories of how mining used to be: long days and nights spent in dark, sweltering tunnels underground; 12-hour shifts; two weeks on two weeks off; away from your family.
While many of the hallmarks of the industry remain recognizable, change is coming. For women in the sector, that’s a good thing. I know because I’m one of them. For the last eight years I’ve worked on Osisko Development’s Cariboo Gold Project, a major gold mine in Wells, B.C. that’s expected to create nearly 500 new, well-paying jobs in the region.
Equally important to the size and scale of the project is its potential to build on a legacy of mining in the historic Cariboo region, while rethinking the way we communicate and report on project developments.
We believe women are at the forefront of these efforts.
I will start with my own experience.
In my role as the environmental superintendent on the project, I helped our team secure the Environmental Assessment Certificate – the first under B.C.’s updated Environmental Assessment Act. My day-to-day is about rigorously monitoring everything from surface and groundwater quality, air quality, and hydrogeology – to name a few examples.
We report our findings to the B.C. Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Mines, and Environment Canada. And we make our reporting accessible to the public as well – you can find our annual reports at your local library.
Our work is technical, but fundamentally, it’s about building and sustaining trust with the local communities we operate in. We can’t do that if we’re not listening to and representing a diverse range of perspectives.
To do that, we need to be transparent, we need to be clear about our goals, and we need to empower a team that broadly represents the interests of our surrounding community. Working towards gender parity plays a major role in that process.
Bringing diverse voices to the table is essential to the mining industry, but study after study shows it’s a work in progress. Independent research suggests that women represent an estimated 8 to 17 per cent of the global mining workforce. The pattern of gender disparity holds at “the C-suite” with female representation sitting at 13 per cent of mining executives.
What I appreciate about Osisko Development is its commitment to inclusion, particularly in the Cariboo Gold Project, where 45 per cent of the workforce is female. It means that we’re able to introduce new ideas, different perspectives and promote a work environment that embraces people and opinions as diverse as the projects we take on.
We are a more informed, more sustainable project as a result, and it gives us stronger footing for building trust with our host community.
But there is always more work to do. Using my voice to encourage women and girls to enter science, technology, engineering, and math is part of that effort.
As I look back on the past generations of mining in my family and in the Cariboo Region, I’m proud of the legacy we have to build on. But I also know that planning for the future means more opportunity, more support and more dialogue with women in the industry.
It’s about more than just a gold mine, but empowering communities and empowering people.
This International Women’s Day, I want to take a moment to recognize the women who are leading the way. We need their perspective to keep transforming the sector, and to make it sustainable for future generations.
Kayly Phipps,
environmental superintendent
Osisko Development Corp.
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