Anne Marie Toutant became one of the most important people in the national mining sector last year, when she became the chairperson of the Mining Association of Canada’s board.
But she also carries fond memories from her time spent in Estevan, when she was employed by the local coal mines, back when they were owned by Luscar Coal. The local mines are now owned by the Westmoreland Coal Company.
Toutant and her family moved to Estevan in 2000, and remained for four years. They came to Estevan after the mine she worked at in Hinton, Alta., was closed.
A mining engineer by training, her role at Luscar’s Boundary Dam site was mine manager. In 2001, she was promoted to the general manager of the Boundary Dam and Bienfait mine sites.
“Estevan is a great location for a young family,” she said in an interview with the Mercury.
Her family golfed at the Woodlawn Golf Course, and she remembers there was one hole in which she could see if the dragline booms were swinging or not.
She also fondly remembers time spent as a Brownie leader while in Estevan, and she still has a recipe book that the girls made one year that she uses all the time.
“On the work side, I learned so much from the team of people at the mine,” she said.
While in Estevan, she learned that safety is the most important work a leader can do, and she also saw the importance of engaging a workforce by taking time to stop and talk to people. All these lessons were valuable as she moved on.
“I also learned a great deal about being a great supplier to your customer, SaskPower, because of the proximity of the power plant to the mine,” she said. “We had to work collaboratively together and create win-win solutions. The value of integrated teams has followed me throughout my career.”
Most of the people her family got to know while in Estevan also had young families, with children the same age as theirs. Social media has allowed them to keep in touch.
“Obviously the mining community is very small, so from time to time, I run across people, at conventions or through LinkedIn … who I came across at past operations, including the Estevan operation,” she said.
Among the most influential people that she met at the local mines were Loretta Miiller and Drew Caswell. Miiller ran the human resources department, while Caswell looked after the supply chain operations at the time.
“They were a force to be reckoned with in the day, and they were a fabulous couple,” Toutant said. “I learned a great deal from that couple in particular.”
In 2004, Toutant and her family relocated to Fort McMurray, and remained there for six years. She led the mining operations for Suncor Energy’s oil sands division as the vice-president.
“A couple of my proudest accomplishments were overseeing the final reclamation of the first oil sands tailings pond – now known as Wapisiw Lookout – and the development of a new mine, the North Steepbank Mine,” she said.
Since 2010, her family has been in Calgary, and since 2015, she has been responsible for the safe commissioning, start-up and operations of the Fort Hills project, a $17 billion oil sands mining and extraction operation owned by Suncor, Teck Resources Ltd and Total E&P Canada Ltd.
“Our site safely produced first oil on January 27, 2018, and we’re currently ramping up production,” she said.
While in Fort McMurray, she became a director of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) in 2005, and joined the executive committee in 2013. She became the chairperson last June, and is midway through her two-year term.
“My role with Suncor opened the door on an opportunity to be a director on the MAC board,” she said.
The MAC is an industry association made up of 42 members who represent most of Canada’s production in base and precious metals, including metallurgical coal.
About 60 associate members supply products and services to the industry.
Toutant became interested in the MAC thanks to a program called Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM), which MAC implemented in 2004. She called TSM a commitment to responsible mining, a set of tools and indicators to drive performance and ensure that MAC member facilities manage key mining risks responsibly, engage with communities, drive world-leading environmental practices and commit to the safety and health of employees.
Toutant is proud of MAC’s work in the review of key environmental legislation, including the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act and the Navigation Protection Act. MAC’s sustainability work received significant recognition in 2017, she said, when the TSM initiative expanded globally with the award-winning mine sustainability standard now being implemented in five other countries: Finland, Argentina, Botswana, the Philippines and Spain.
Also, MAC’s Tailings Working Group released an updated edition of MAC’s Guide to the Management of Tailings Facilities, which she said will result in continuous improvement in tailings management as sites implement the updated practices.
“The staff is very well respected federally in Ottawa, and they provide a lot of input and advice into policies and new legislation,” said Toutant.
In November, the MAC holds a Mining Day on Parliament Hill, when it meets elected officials, senior staff from the government ministries, and speaks about the mining industry.
It hasn’t been difficult balancing her work with MAC and the duties of her job.
“The work of MAC is very complimentary to my own role inside my company, as I think it is for each of the members that represent their companies on the board. The things that we discuss and advance and learn about at MAC are directly applicable back to our operations.”
Toutant believes the mining industry is important to Saskatchewan, and the rest of the country, for a number of reasons. Mining contributed $57.6 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 and the industry accounted for 19 per cent of the value of Canadian goods exported.
The national value of mineral production in 2016 was $40.8 billion, and Saskatchewan was in the top four with a value of $5.5 billion.
Canada also ranks in the top five countries in the global production of 13 major minerals and metals – and several are from Saskatchewan. Canada ranks first in potash and second in uranium and niobium.
The Canadian mining industry directly employs more than 403,000 workers across the country, and indirectly employs an additional 193,000.
“Wages are higher than forestry, manufacturing, finance and construction,” she said. “In 2016 the average annual pay for a mining worker exceeded $100,000.”
The mining industry is the largest private sector employer of Indigenous peoples in Canada, she said, and there are more than 400 active agreements between mining companies and Indigenous communities.
“Globally, Canada is recognized for its leadership in safety and sustainability. Mining companies in Canada were the first in the world to develop an externally-verified performance system for sustainable mining practices by creating TSM, which are implemented by member companies with their progress publically documented annually.”
Mined metals and minerals are used in a broad range of products, from cell phones to fertilizer, she said, and they are mined in a sustainable way in Canada by a mining industry that always looking at ways to continuously improve its performance.
