Page 20 Page 20 MLEN SPRING 2020 By Kevin V incent If every dark cloud has a silver lining then the dark cloud of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic of 2020 for Pan American Silver has been golden In the words of Pan American s Canadian Country manager Dave Bernier the perfor mance of the company s T immins based gold operations has result ed in a positive spotlight from the board Pan American operates the T im mins W est and Bell Creek gold mines as well as the Bell Creek mill that processes the company s ore At one point during the pandem ic of the ten mines the company owns T immins was the only one operating Unlike many jurisdictions around the world Canada considered min ing an essential service and the already hypersafetysensitive in dustry was allowed to continue op erations Almost immediately we set up an advisory team with our health and safety team our managers and re ally led by our occupational health nurse said Bernier W ere lucky to have Laurie DaggLabine join us from the Porcupine Health Unit right at the beginning of the year so it couldnt have come at a better time She had a lot of history with the health unit and was great for us In addition the company collabo rated with Glencore Kidd Opera tions as well as Newmont Porcu pine representatives W e had a roundtable every week just to share best practices what are they see ing what are we seeing It proved very benefcial and kept us on the same page and we learned from each other Site screening temperature checks and enhanced cleaning all factored into the company s proto cols which managed at the time of this writing to prevent any positive cases from turning up in the two mines or the mill The company like others also took advantage of relationships with the Ontario Mining Association and the Mining Association of Canada The protocols put in place during the pandemic outbreak are now the new normal for mining compa nies W e stagger shifts we try and move people around to minimize the number of people in main gath ering or entry points The company also allowed vol untary layofs for those who had vulnerable family members who had health conditions that might be compromised by the virus Thirty six employees took advantage of that ofer and most have either re turned to work or are returning to work gradually I think sometimes mining gets a bad rap especially outside mining P AN AMERICAN SIL VER Contd on pg 22 T immins Gold Assets Shine