$23 Million for Indigenous Training Tied to Voisey’s Bay Expansion
Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Nfld. – Newfoundland and Labrador recently announced it is teaming up with the federal government to deliver a new $23.6 million training program aimed at getting more Indigenous people to work at the Voisey’s Bay mine. Officials from the Nunatsiavut government, Innu Nation, NunatuKavut, Vale, and the federal and provincial governments came together with the College of the North Atlantic (CNA) in Happy Valley-Goose Bay to announce the project, which is being led by the Labrador Aboriginal Training Partnership (LATP). “We cannot sustain operations bringing people from outside. We have to have locals here working with us, building careers for the long run,” said Joao Zanon, Vale’s project director for the Voisey’s Bay mine expansion project. “Our history shows that we did that in the past and worked well. You go today to the sites, you see that over 50 percent of the workforce is Aboriginal and we know this is the key to the future.” Government officials say the program should mean another 400 Indigenous people in Labrador will get the chance to work at the Vale mine site, which recently announced a major expansion. The mine sits on Nunatsiavut and Innu Nation traditional land near Nain on Labrador’s north coast and contains one of the world’s richest deposits of nickel, as well as quantities of cobalt and copper. Government officials and Vale have said they expect the expansion to create 1,700 jobs. ABQ
