Background
In 1994, The Canadian Federal Government Whitehorse Mining Initiative (WMI) recommended the establishment of a mining industry council to address sector-wide human resources issues.
In response to the WMI's request, the Mining Industry Training and Adjustment Council (MITAC) was established in November 1996, through the combined efforts of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) and three major unions in the mining sector: The United Steelworkers of America, the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada and the Canadian Autoworkers Union.
MITAC's goal was to enable Canadian mining companies, unions, and employees to collaborate to improve the quality, cost-effectiveness, availability of training and to maximize the skills, adaptability, and employability of the workers in the minerals and metals sector. Its activities were funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC).
After the HRSDC halted funding MITAC's training development initiatives and Youth Opportunities Program in early 2002, they commissioned the council to undertake a sector study. Its 2005 release highlighted the ongoing need for MITAC's expertise in addressing HR challenges facing the mining industry. In particular, the study noted that the industry had to make better use of all potential sources of employment, including youth, women, Indigenous people, and new Canadians. It also highlighted the need to ensure a skilled workforce.
With the study's findings, MITAC undertook a strategic planning process resulting in a new mandate and future direction and function. Effective February 2006, The Mining Industry Training and Adjustment Council (MITAC) was renamed the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR).
Programs and Initiatives
Gearing Up
Announced in April 2018, Gearing Up is a work-integrated learning (WIL) program for Canada's mining sector. It aims to create 850 new WIL opportunities in mining over four years. Wage subsidies up to $7,000 are available to employers who create new WIL opportunities, such as co-ops, internships, field placements, applied projects, capstone projects or case competitions. [4]
MiHR works with a national consortium of mining employers, industry associations and post-secondary institutions to implement program activities and inform how industry and education can work together collaboratively to develop WIL opportunities.
The Canadian Mining Certification Program (CMCP)
The CMCP intends to measure and certify expertise in mining, validating the skills, knowledge, and experience of workers in the mining sector. CMCP is the first - and only - national mining worker certification program in Canada.
CMCP recognizes individual mine workers who have demonstrated their competency and expertise by meeting the National Occupational Standards (NOS) established for the Canadian mining industry. They establish clear, objective skill and knowledge benchmarks, and form the basis for workplace development, driving curriculum development within educational institutes, and the alignment of company training programs. [5]
Mining Essentials
Mining Essentials is a pre-employment training program for Indigenous peoples who are interested in exploring career options in mining. The program teaches both the essential skills and work readiness skills that the Canadian mining industry has deemed necessary to gain an entry-level position. It is being expanded as part of the National Essential and Work Readiness (NEWR) Skills Training Program for the mining industry to better represent youth, women and immigrants. [6]
Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. The ore must be a rock or mineral that contains valuable constituent, can be extracted or mined and sold for profit. Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water.
Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include manpower, labor, labor-power, or personnel.
Thompson is a city in north-central Manitoba, Canada, the largest city and most populated municipality in Northern Manitoba.
Employment and Social Development Canada is a department of the Government of Canada responsible for social programs and the labour market at the federal level. The department delivers a number of federal government programs and services including Employment Insurance (EI), Service Canada centres, Canada Student Loan Program (CSLP), Canada Pension Plan (CPP), issuing social insurance numbers (SIN) and the federal Labour Program among other things.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, often colloquially pronounced 'shirk' is a Canadian federal research-funding agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and training in the humanities and social sciences. It is one of three major federal granting agencies that together are referred to as the "Tri-Council" or "Tri-Agency.
Recognition of prior learning (RPL), prior learning assessment (PLA), or prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) describes a process used by regulatory bodies, adult learning centres, career development practitioners, military organizations, human resources professionals, employers, training institutions, colleges and universities around the world to evaluate skills and knowledge acquired outside the classroom for the purpose of recognizing competence against a given set of standards, competencies, or learning outcomes. RPL is practiced in many countries for a variety of purposes, for example an individual's standing in a profession, trades qualifications, academic achievement, recruitment, performance management, career and succession planning.
National Occupational Classification, or NOC, is a systematic taxonomy of all occupations in the Canadian labour market. As a Canadian government publication it is concurrently published in French as Classification nationale des professions. The NOC a joint project between Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and Statistics Canada and classifies over 30,000 occupational titles into 500 Unit Groups, organized according to 4 skill levels and 10 skill types.
Mineral economics is the academic discipline that investigates and promotes understanding of economic and policy issues associated with the production and use of mineral commodities.
Paul Holloway is an Australian politician who represented the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party in the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Mitchell from 1989 to 1993, and in the South Australian Legislative Council from 1995 to 2011.
The National Council of Welfare (NCW) was a Canadian arm's length advisory body to the federal Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development on poverty and the realities of low-income Canadians.
Green jobs are, according to the United Nations Environment Program, "work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development (R&D), administrative, and service activities that contribute(s) substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality. Specifically, but not exclusively, this includes jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption through high efficiency strategies; de-carbonize the economy; and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution." The environmental sector has the dual benefit of mitigating environmental challenges as well as helping economic growth.
ECO Canada is an online resource for environmental jobs, certification and training established in 1992 as part of Canada's sector council initiative. Sector councils are organizations that address human resource challenges facing the Canadian economy. With the support of private sector investors and the Government of Canada’s Department of Human Resources and Social Development, ECO Canada works to determine the skills and human resource needs of Canada’s environment industry.
Fly-in fly-out is a method of employing people in remote areas by flying them temporarily to the work site instead of relocating employees and their families permanently. It is often abbreviated to FIFO when referring to employment status. This is common in large mining regions in Australia and Canada.
NetCorps was a volunteer-organizing coalition consisting of nine Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOs), funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and managed by the NetCorps coordination unit. Through the program, the organizations created international information and communication technologies (ICT) internships in developing countries around the world. Interns typically participated in six-month programs, leaving between August and November for host organizations in the placement countries. Positions were limited to 19–30-year-old Canadian citizens or landed immigrants who had "appropriate information and communication technologies skills". Typical duties included creating webpages, developing databases, computer networking, setting up hardware, preparing manuals and other documentation, and general-to-advanced computer instruction.
The Canadian Mining Certification Program (CMCP), under the coordination of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MIHR), began in 2006 with the development of the three National Occupation Standards (NOS) for the Canadian mining industry. The CMCP encompasses both the accreditation of training and the certification of workers within the mining industry.
An artisanal miner or small-scale miner (ASM) is a subsistence miner who is not officially employed by a mining company, but works independently, mining minerals using their own resources, usually by hand.
The mining industry of Sierra Leone accounted for 4.5 percent of the country's GDP in 2007 and minerals made up 79 percent of total export revenue with diamonds accounting for 46 percent of export revenue in 2008. The main minerals mined in Sierra Leone are diamonds, rutile, bauxite, gold, iron and limonite.
The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) is an independent non-profit and non-partisan social policy research organization based in Canada, with a focus on designing, implementing and evaluating large-scale demonstration projects.
Ian Geoffrey Gould is a former Chancellor of the University of South Australia (2008–2015) and former Managing Director (Australia) of Rio Tinto Group. Gould is considered to be one of South Australia's most influential people.
