The Advisory Group identified six key health and safety issues in underground mining that, if addressed, could have the greatest impact on improving health and safety outcomes:

  1. Health and safety hazards
  2. The impact of new technology and the use of a management of change process to evaluate implications for health and safety
  3. Emergency preparedness and mine rescue
  4. Training, skills and labour supply issues
  5. The capacity of the occupational health and safety system
  6. The Internal Responsibility System footnote 8

This report describes each of these issues, summarizes current knowledge and makes recommendations on how to reduce risks and enhance health and safety.

Note: Although the issues are presented as though they are distinct, recommendations that address one issue often affect the others.

The Internal Responsibility System first appeared in Ontario in the 1976 Report of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines led by Dr. James Ham, “…in Table 51 which detailed occupational health and safety responsibilities for various workplace parties including CEOs, unions, employers, workers and supervisors proportional to the degree of control they exercise in the workplace.


Footnotes

  • footnote[8] Back to paragraph The Internal Responsibility System first appeared in Ontario in the 1976 Report of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines led by Dr. James Ham, “…in Table 51 which detailed occupational health and safety responsibilities for various workplace parties including CEOs, unions, employers, workers and supervisors proportional to the degree of control they exercise in the workplace.