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Safety lessons are the same, whether you’re an astronaut headed into the Earth’s orbit or someone working at Gahcho Kué Mine here on Earth.
That was the message on August 15th from Dr. Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman and first neurologist in space. Bondar was among Canada’s first group of astronauts and orbited the earth for eight days in 1992 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
She was at Gahcho Kué Mine to speak with employees about safety and inclusion. During her day-long visit, Bondar was also taken on a tour of the mine, enjoyed a ride in a 200-tonne haul truck and got to see some of the diamonds recovered at the mine. The inspirational talk was intended as a way to engage and energize employees to continue working safely. So far this year, mine employees have worked a combined 750,000 hours without a lost time injury. We have achieved amazing things in 2017 and recognizing this is key.
During three hour-long sessions, Bondar related her experiences in the Canadian Space Agency and NASA to the critical safety behaviours being instilled into everyone working for De Beers Canada.
“We have to develop the ability to see things,” she said. “We can’t let the things that are not normal become normal … because if it happens over time and becomes normal, that’s when you get into big trouble.”
She encouraged employees to ensure they live up to their personal values and ethics, whether at home or at the mine, and to dig deep and keep gaining knowledge about the best way to do a task.
Most of all, said Bondar, employees must have the courage to speak out on all matters. We need to create an environment where people feel safe to raise concerns and issues. There should be no sense of victimization.
“It’s all about the way we cope with the things that we do,” she said. “We only have one life and we need to do it the best way we can.”