QUEEN’S PARK– Today NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the government needs to provide adequate resources for its mining safety review panel to do its job to protect miners across the province following the death of a miner in Sudbury this week.
“It has been 30 years since a provincial commission investigated mine safety. Since then miners in Ontario have been killed and thousands of others have been injured. Last year the premier rejected a public inquiry into mine safety and instead chose a review,” Horwath said.
“But at the first public hearings in Timmins and Kirkland Lake, the government didn’t advertise or even put out so much as a press release or media advisory inviting participants. Does the Premier think this is acceptable?”
On Sunday, 36-year-old Paul Rochette, a millwright with two young children, was killed in Vale’s Copper Cliff Smelter.
This week Horwath called on all MPPs in the legislature to observe a moment of silence to remember his life. The NDP Leader said elected representatives need to do everything in their power to end workplace deaths and injuries and demanded the premier commit to improving the government’s mining safety review.
“The Premier refuses to conduct a mine safety inquiry. Will she make a commitment today that the government’s review panel into mine safety will have the resources necessary to conduct numerous site visits to mining operations both below ground and above ground?”
-NDP Press Release
