Page 44 The Ontario Mine Rescue system stands as the last line of protection in Ontario s underground mines It was born out of the tragedy of the 1928 Hollinge r Mine Fire in which 39 people perished due to a stub born fre that neither the mining company or the town of T immins was prepared to deal with The Godson Commission 1928 looked into the causes of the Hol linger Mine Fire and made recom mendations on how to avoid such tragedies in the future Godson also recommended the creation of the Ontario Mine Res cue system Over the 90 years of its exis tence Ontario Mine Rescue has evolved and along with improvements in the Ontario s workplace safety legislation and regulation together they have made great strides in mining workplace safety Through the lessons learn ed from the tragedies of the East Malar tic Mine Fire 1947 the McIntyre Mine Fire 1965 and the Falcon bridge Rockburst 1984 and other incidences Ontario Mine Rescue has evolved and upgra ded its practices The Ham Commission Report in 1975 included more than 100 rec ommendations concerning mine health and safety Ham also intro duced the idea of an internal re sponsibility system which would require government employers and workers to work together to improve health and safety Shortly after the Ontario Occupa tional Health and Safety Act 1978 enshrined the creation of joint health and safety committees in workplaces including mining T oday health and safety commit tees composed of management and employees review and assess safety issues that arise and rectify them to prevent injury Through the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Regulations workers may refuse dangerous work until the hazard is cleared This provision helps to identify and remove a workplace hazard to pre vent injury or loss of life The Ontario Mining Association and its members promote safe production as fundamental to On tario mineral operations T o that end mining companies devote themselves to promoting an in grained workplace safety culture by training employees engaging in risk management measuring performance rewarding achieve ment sharin g informatio n and adopting best practices The ultimate goal pursued by Ontario mining companies is to achieve a zeroincident work envi ronment In 2016 and 2018 Ontario s min ing industry met its zerofatality Ontario Mine Rescue T oday By Frank Giorno Page 42